Germano Complex Case Study

Decent Essays
Actually, IEF (2014, p.1), published a report in 2014 affirming that the dams of the Germano complex were operating over their limits, and that building a new dam was necessary, or at least expanding the current dams for safety purposes was a priority. The priority in this case is related to the fact that according to Mendes and Salvo, this dam complex had a fatal geographic aspect, because it was built 11km away from Bento Rodrigues, a little town whose population was around 600.

However, due to the continuous economic growth and need to increase production, the dam complex went through a series of reforms to accommodate the additional resources without passing through any environmental tests or any regulation of environmental institution.
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The reason for it was a lack of will, combined with short budget and consequently staff.

Consequently, it was determined by the Brazilian authorities responsible for auditing the company’s activities, Fundacao Estadual do Meio Ambiente (FEAM) that the companies would be responsible for taking the safety measures and “to hire independent audit firms to do the evaluation of the stability and safety of their enterprise”. In the case of Samarco, the reports with regard to the stability and safety should be sent annually to the environmental authorities.
In 2012, Samarco did all the safety processes and passed the audit, although, due to the increase of the production and to damage from natural use, it was required by the auditors that Samarco take some safety measures in order to better guarantee the safety of the dams. Which the company did not deny to
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At first, the person responsible for it, the Secretary of Environment for Mariana, considered the danger that such a measure presented and decided he needed more time to analyse it, but due to the pressure made by the company, the Ministry signed the document authorizing it without going through the pre-established bureaucratic process that is done in order to carefully guarantee the safety of the project itself, and of the population and environment. This was the first mistake that shows the power of Samarco and illustrates the power that big companies have over the Brazilian institutional and bureaucratic procedures.

In the following years, the audit results were positive for the company. Fundão dam was considered safe in spite of some fissures that the company would have to daily inspect, as well as to record any anomalies. In spite of this the license of Samarco was still valid to run the dam, and the Environmental Council did not oppose the dam operation.
However, Pristino Institute, a non-profitable organization was hired in order to make its own analysis with regard to the safety of the dam, and the results were alarming. The results of the Pristino Intitute were far more detailed than the ones provided by the company, and the risk of an erosion and to develop safety measures were pointed out by

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