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Vale misled public on dangerous dams, prompting Brazil probe: source
Source: Reuters
WORLD NEWS SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 / 9:37 AM / UPDATED 5 HOURS AGO
Vale misled public on dangerous dams, prompting Brazil probe: source
Marta Nogueira, Jake Spring, Christian Plumb
7 MIN READ
RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Faced with public outrage after its second mining dam collapse in four years killed at least 240 people in Brazil, Vale SA misrepresented what it had done to shut down its riskiest dams, a review of the company’s statements shows.
Fabio Schvartsman, Vale’s then-chief executive, said at a nationally broadcast news conference days after the dam burst in late January that the company had already decommissioned nine “upstream dams” in the wake of a 2015 disaster involving the same type of structure, and planned to dismantle 10 more over the next few years. The company repeated the claim in a statement on its website.
Reuters asked Vale for details on these moves on February 5, seven days after Schvartsman’s news conference.
In March, some five weeks later, Vale gave Reuters a list of nine dams that it said it had closed since 2014, a year before the Mariana disaster. Five were smaller structures, called dikes, which Vale said should be considered “upstream dams,” while four others were listed as single-step dams, which experts consider less dangerous.
But Eduardo Leão, a director of the Brazilian mining regulator ANM, and another expert who reviewed the list for Reuters, said that they were all in fact smaller structures and not the dangerous upstream type.
-snip-
Vale misled public on dangerous dams, prompting Brazil probe: source
Marta Nogueira, Jake Spring, Christian Plumb
7 MIN READ
RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Faced with public outrage after its second mining dam collapse in four years killed at least 240 people in Brazil, Vale SA misrepresented what it had done to shut down its riskiest dams, a review of the company’s statements shows.
Fabio Schvartsman, Vale’s then-chief executive, said at a nationally broadcast news conference days after the dam burst in late January that the company had already decommissioned nine “upstream dams” in the wake of a 2015 disaster involving the same type of structure, and planned to dismantle 10 more over the next few years. The company repeated the claim in a statement on its website.
Reuters asked Vale for details on these moves on February 5, seven days after Schvartsman’s news conference.
In March, some five weeks later, Vale gave Reuters a list of nine dams that it said it had closed since 2014, a year before the Mariana disaster. Five were smaller structures, called dikes, which Vale said should be considered “upstream dams,” while four others were listed as single-step dams, which experts consider less dangerous.
But Eduardo Leão, a director of the Brazilian mining regulator ANM, and another expert who reviewed the list for Reuters, said that they were all in fact smaller structures and not the dangerous upstream type.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vale-disaster-focus/vale-misled-public-on-dangerous-dams-prompting-brazil-probe-source-idUSKBN1W21LT