Project for Brazil’s largest uranium mine gets approval to move forward

The licensing process for what is now the largest uranium exploration project in Brazil, the Santa Quitéria Project, in Ceará, has resumed. In this new round of analyses, public hearings have already been released by Ibama (Ibama Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources). The debates should take place in the next three months and promise to be intense.

The project is located between the municipalities of Santa Quitéria and Itatira, 217 km from Fortaleza. It foresees an investment of R$ 2.3 billion and the generation of 11 thousand jobs for the exploitation of an abundant reserve of uranium associated with phosphate, raw material for the fertilizer and animal feed industries.

Social movements, indigenous people and researchers have been fighting the project. The group has produced studies and opinions that point out risks of radiation contamination, has held lives on the subject, promotes marches and some members have already traveled to the deputies’ office in Brasilia asking them to take a stand against the plan.

These critics clash with the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, which has placed uranium mining on the list of priorities. In 2019, an ambitious plan was launched that foresees the construction of six nuclear plants by 2050, in an investment of BRL 30 billion. The Angra 3 project was rescued. Recently, Thiago Barral, president of EPE (Energy Planning Company), defended the use of small reactors to help the energy transition in the country.

Minister Bento Albuquerque, of Mines and Energy, is an enthusiast of the nuclear source and has been working hard to make the agenda viable. The government managed to reactivate, in 2020, the Caetité mine, in Bahia, which had been stopped for five years. The Santa Quitéria deposit is strategic in this plan.

In Brazil, the State has a monopoly on the exploration and processing of radioactive substances, which are also considered national security. It is up to the state-owned INB (Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil) to represent the government in the operation of these materials. She will be responsible for processing the uranium in Santa Quitéria.

According to Rogério Mendes Carvalho, director of Mineral Resources at INB, this project will put Brazil on another level in terms of uranium production. According to estimates, it will produce 2,300 tons of concentrate per year, three times more than the national demand, including the additional needs for the Angra 3 operation. Today, Brazil needs to import uranium.

Phosphate, in turn, is a raw material for fertilizers and the expansion of its production is in the national plan for the area, launched by the government in March.

It will be up to the private company Fosnor, Galvani’s fertilizer transport and handling subsidiary, to take care of the phosphate products. The projection is that the project will meet 3.5% of the national consumption of phosphate fertilizers and 23% of the demand in the North and Northeast regions, including the Matopiba area, a new frontier of agribusiness, in addition to offering dicalcium phosphate for animal nutrition.

FEAR OF CONTAMINATION IS STRONG IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES

None of this, however, alleviates the suspicion of those who live in the region of the deposit. “They say this project will bring employment, development, but it can also bring death and it’s taking our sleep”, says Aroerê Tabajara, who adopted the name Elvis, and lives in the village of Olho da Guinha, in the project’s area of ​​influence.

In this region are 35 villages of eight ethnicities. In addition to Tabajara, there are representatives from Potyguara, Gavião, Tubiba-Tapuia, Kanindé, Karão Jaguaribara, Anacé and Tapeba. There are also 16 quilombos and several small rural properties. The county seat is 62 km from the mine.

Elvis guarantees that if it depends on local mobilization, the project goes back to the drawer. This is the government’s third attempt to obtain the license. In the first, in 2007, the authorization request provided only for phosphate exploration and was filed with the state environmental agency. The Public Prosecutor’s Office suspended the process in 2010 when it understood that the presence of uranium threw the discussion to the federal sphere.

In the second attempt, in 2010, the government filed a request with IBAMA and Cnen (National Nuclear Energy Commission). The process underwent public hearings in 2014 and was denied a license in 2019 by the environmental agency. The new round started in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic.

Contamination of air and water with radiation is a major concern. The mining process releases particulate matter that is carried by the wind and tends to accumulate in the environment. The Santa Quitéria project mine is open pit, facilitating the dispersion of radioactive material and heavy ores.

“We are in the semiarid region, and the rural population uses collectors that accumulate rainwater for consumption in the driest period”, says Erivan Silva, a resident who joined the anti-nuclear movement. “Will the dust accumulate in the houses? Can it contaminate the water?”

The conflict over water has an aggravating factor. The government of Ceará has committed to building a 64 km pipeline connecting the Edson Queiroz reservoir to the mine area, with a capacity to transport 1,036 m³/hour, of which 855 m³/hour for mining. The rest will serve some communities. In a region where people depend on water trucks to drink water and cannot grow crops for food, the state’s contribution to mining has a very bad effect, explains Erivan.

Researcher and physician Raquel Rigotto, a specialist in collective health at the UFC (Federal University of Ceará), who is following the project, complains about the lack of transparency of vital data for the community to understand the risks of the project. She says that licensing is fragmented between the environmental, which runs at Ibama, and the nuclear, which is up to Cnen. Residents of the region and researchers do not have access to nuclear data at Cnen.

“Most of the information is considered strategic and remains confidential, which allows us to think the worst,” she says, stressing that there is a long list of different types of cancers that can be caused by exposure to radiation, as well as changes psychological, depending on concentrations and time of exposure to radioactive materials.

A doubt for the researchers is the level of radiation in the phosphate that will be directed to agribusiness. There is no doubt that the radiation content is higher than that of deposits not associated with uranium, but it is not known how much, nor what would be the peculiarities for its day-to-day use in the field.

Galvani claims that a technology has been developed that separates uranium from phosphoric acid, so phosphate products will be free of uranium and impurities. However, researchers want to understand the process in detail.

RESEARCH IN CAETITÉ (BA) HAS POINTED RADIOACTIVE RISKS

The occupational medicine researcher Paulo Pena, from UFBA (Federal University of Bahia), says that doubts in Ceará are valid. Paiva participated in a study on the impacts of the Caetité mine, which fuels a long history of controversies between INB and the Federal Public Ministry.

The study had six lines of investigation, to investigate the impact of radiation on workers and the community, and included interviews, field visits, radiation measurements and analysis of data collected between 2012 and 2019. The group includes a representative of Criidad (Commission Research and Independent Information on Radiation), an entity that monitors radiation in France, the second largest generator of nuclear energy in the world, with more than 50 plants in operation.

“In summary, we found evidence of radioactive risks for workers, especially outsourced workers, and for the entire population in the mine’s area of ​​influence”, says Paiva.

According to him, higher than normal levels of heavy metals were identified in artesian wells, and some were sealed. There was a record of infiltration of the mining area, with contamination of groundwater. There was no epidemiological surveillance to monitor the incidence of cancer.

“Radiation is cumulative and when someone is treated for cancer, they go to a larger city, so, despite the fact that cancer records in the region are higher than in the rest of the state, it would take a work on just that”, says Paiva.

In its report, the French entity questioned the lack of data on monitoring gamma radiation, the deposition of radioactive dust, soil contamination, rainwater contamination and the food chain, as well as the fact that not even workers know what levels of radiation they were exposed to.

“In Brazil, nuclear energy was developed by the military, which still feeds the culture of secrecy,” says Raoni Adão Jonusan, a PhD in Nuclear Science and Techniques from UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), an advocate of the use of core in different areas of knowledge.

“It is necessary to change that, because people have the right to know and monitor the risks, and demand that the best procedures are implemented. Without this, people will continue working against what they do not know.”

PUBLIC BODIES AFFIRM THAT THERE IS AN EFFORT TO CLARIFY DOUBTS

The INB press office highlighted to the report that it has already carried out a work to clarify the population in the area of ​​the Caetité mine, disclosing and explaining environmental monitoring data. He also says that the communication effort includes explaining that radiation is naturally higher in the region due to the volume of ore concentrated in the deposit. The same work will be done in Ceará.

He also highlighted that the project “will work with uranium in its natural state, that is, in the way it is found in nature, which is characterized by low emission of radiation”. Therefore, “at levels that do not pose risks to the health of people in the surroundings and those who will work in the operation”.

INB also said that the project has the Pre-Operational Environmental Radiological Monitoring Program, which will monitor radionuclides in the air, surface and underground water, soil, vegetation and fish for two years before the start of the operation to characterize the site of the enterprise. This program has already been submitted to Cnen for approval.

In the assessment of the MME, all fears about the Santa Quitéria project can be resolved in the public debate on nuclear energy that accompanies the licensing.

“The Santa Quitéria – Itataia Industrial Complex project is in the process of obtaining environmental licensing, for which public hearings should take place, to be convened by the environmental agency, which will contribute to the proper technical instruction of the project, as well as to the integration with the local and regional community”, he said in a note sent to Sheet.

“Prior to the hearings, several meetings will take place with groups of interest in the specific knowledge of themes and doubts about the project (federal and state attorneys in the region; state deputies and councilors of cities in the project area, class bodies, and others already identified) .”

In a note sent to SheetIbama highlighted that it is important to clarify that the licensing process involves a set of steps, which are being followed by the agency.

The report contacted Cnen, the Santa Quitéria city hall and the Ceará state government, but received no response.