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Samarco Mineração S.A. is a Brazilian mining company founded in 1977. It is currently a joint-venture between Vale and the English-Australian BHP Billiton. The company’s main product is iron ore pellets, which are produced during the transformation of low-grade iron ore into a high quality steel that is used globally for consumer products, such as cars and domestic appliances.
ContControlled by Samarco Mineração SA, the Fundão and Santarém dams are part of the Germano mine located in the district of Santa Rita Durão, Brazil. The tailings dams were built to accommodate the waste resulting from the extraction of iron ore from numerous mines in the region.
The Background
Around 3:30pm on the afternoon of 5th November, the Fundão dam started to leak. Attempts to fix this failed. At 4.20 pm the dam ruptured, sending toxic sludge into the populated valley below. About 60 million cubic meters of iron waste flowed into the Doce River. Toxic brown mudflows reached the Atlantic Ocean 17 days later.
The total impact and environmental consequences to the river and the beaches near its mouth, or to wildlife, are still unclear. This incident has by many been described as the worst environmental disaster in Brazil's history
The Disaster
On 5th November 2015 two dams in Brazil collapsed, spreading pollutants from iron mining into the surrounding area and contaminating the local water supply. This environmental catastrophe meant that mining company responsible, Samarco Mineração S.A. waswas required by the Brazilian Government to implement an Environmental Data Management system to analyse and manage the response to this crisis. MonitorPro was the system chosen.
EHS Data Plays Vital Role in Mining Company Crisis Recovery Plan
Tel: +44 (0) 845 388 2458 | [email protected]
Samarco is legally obligated to monitor and restore the environment. Prior to the disaster, the company relied heavily on manual input to in-house Excel files to document environmental information. This was labour intensive – it was also prone to error and lacks consistency. This poorly-designed paper system made it difficult for management to track and report onon potential issues. This led to an inadequate audit trail – nobody could keep track of who did what, where, when and why.
The Challenge
MonitorPro was recommended to Samarco by Imperial Metals Mount Polley mine, which had a similar disaster a few years ago. Samarco installed a configured MonitorPro Environmental Database Management system to assist in recovering from the disaster.
The Solution
customers can manage all their environmental and sustainability data in a single, secure and auditable platform. The software can collect and collate all environmental data. MonitorPro offers a bespoke database option. There will be fewer errors, staff will have more time to carry out other tasks, thus improving efficiency and productivity
Flexibility
the MonitorPro platform is the only software certified to the Environmental Agency’s strict MCERT quality standard for Environmental Monitoring Data Management Systems
Security
EHS Data has over 20 years’ experience in the field, delivering specialist systems to manage environmental and sustainability data.
Support from Specialists
the software helps minimise financial and reputational risks with enhanced compliance planning, checking, automatic alerts and reporting
Risk Reduction
The benefits of using MonitorPro are:
Tel: +44 (0) 845 388 2458 | [email protected]
As Samarco reconstructs the area, rebuilding the tailings dams, to make them stronger and more reliable, MonitorPro is used to monitor the environmental improvements and performance during reconstruction. Once this is completed, the software will ensure that legal obligations and environmental regulations are complied with, and the company's environmental performance will be effectively maintained once operations resume.
ReferringReferring to monitoring the analytical results, Luciano França Rocha, Automation Engineer, Samarco Mineração S.A. says, “We have more than five laboratories working for us at the same time, and sometimes at the same location but with MonitorPro we can monitor the work and progress of each laboratory through the monitoring schedule tool. With this tool we know exactly what has been delivered or not and we can check for missing results in a more effective way.”
The MonitorPro tool allows automated input of data, avoiding manual mistakes, such as entering physically impossible numbers, broken thresholds, or incorrect decimal points.
ItIt also pre-checks the data so that incorrect figures are not accepted. Luciano França Rocha says, “It helps us to get a well-organized and consistent data base structure avoiding the existence of redundant sample points - a mistake that was occurring very often.”
Productivity has been increased as reports can be automatically generated using Crystal Reports.
EHS Data's state-of-the-art MonitorPro application continues to serve Samarco's restoration of the area by monitoring the reduction in pollutants and the meeting of environmental targets.
The Results
“It helps us to get a well organized and consistent data base structure avoiding the existence of redundant sample points - a mistake that was occurring very often.”
Luciano França Rocha, Automation Engineer, Samarco Mineração S.A.
Tel: +44 (0) 845 388 2458 | [email protected]
Environmental monitoring is essential to ensure that industrial processes are compliant with legal requirement and the best environmental practices in the sector. The lesson from the Samarco Dam disaster is that having a good monitoring system in place when the worst happens, ensures that remedial action can be taken in the most efficient way.
MiningMining tailings dam breaches are on the rise, with disastrous effects on lives and the environment and clearly more concerted efforts are needed. Companies should have all their environmental data available in one place, easily accessible to review for compliance in a secure database. EHS Data offers all these requirements and can take away all the stress of these issues. EHS Data should be your partner of choice for all Environmental Data Management requisites. The company develops, supplies and maintains the MonitorPro software package. This versatile application is available multi-platform for desktop, web access, and offline on mobile phones and tablets.
TheThe financial risks of not having a proper environmental monitoring system in place can be substantial, and companies should ensure that they are operating to high standards to avoid government intervention and reputational effects, which can markedly affect business performance.
Conclusion
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