- Seven years after a dam holding mining sludge collapsed in Brumadinho, southeastern Brazil, killing 272 people, mining giant Vale and its partner Itaminas are resuming operations at the very same mining complex.
- The reopening of the Jangada mining site threatens the local community’s water security by potentially lowering the water table and compromising springs that supply hundreds of families in Brumadinho’s rural area, residents say.
- Residents, victims’ relatives and civil society organizations have flagged the lack of information about the environmental risks that persist in a territory scarred by one of the worst mining-related disasters in Brazil.
BRUMADINHO, Brazil — In the rural community of Jangada, in the municipality of Brumadinho in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, the water that supplies local families comes from springs that emerge onsite. In a Youtube video uploaded last December, local resident Lorraine Nascimento talks proudly about how “the water belongs to us.”
More than 30 years ago, without any support from the state waterd board, Copasa, the residents built a system by themselves to collect and distribute water from the springs. Today, the system is managed autonomously by a community association created for this purpose, and supplies water to hundreds of families in Casa Branca, the rural district where the Jangada community is located.
Cátia Patrocinia Cruz Maia is a schoolteacher who, like everyone in her family, was born and raised in the community. She’s a member of the association that manages the water collection and distribution system. She recalls that, before the system was created, residents used to get their water from a creek that ran through the area. As the community grew, the demand for piped water increased as well. That was when her father, João de Sousa Cruz, joined friends and neighbors to solve the problem.
“They got together and started building a system to pipe water for all the families,” Maia says. “Those who could afford it pitched in to help buy the pipes. Not a single cent came from the local government; it was all a community effort.”
Today, however, Jangada’s water is threatened by the nearby operations of Brazilian mining giant Vale. Seven years ago, on Jan. 25, 2019, the company was embroiled in one of the worst environmental disasters in Brazil’s history. A dam holding back iron ore waste, or tailings, at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão mine collapsed, unleashing 10 million cubic meters (2.6 billion gallons) of sludge into the Paraopeba River and killing 272 people.
Córrego do Feijão lies within the Paraopeba complex, where Vale also has another mine, the Jangada mine, under joint management with Itaminas Comércio de Minério S.A. In August 2025, Vale and Itaminas resumed operations at the Jangada mine, which lies less than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the springs that supply the community. The companies want to increase the mining area and depth, which critics warn could lower the water table and undermine water security across the entire region.
“On August 1, 2025, we were surprised by the reopening of the Jangada mine, which had been closed since 2019,” Maia says, adding that the mining companies didn’t carry out any consultation with the community prior to the reopening.
“We’re concerned about the water because it’s been significantly reduced over the last few years. The creek that used to run through people’s plots is almost gone. At my house, for example, it only reappears during the rainy season. So now we fear that it will be reduced even further and leave the entire community without water. Today we struggle for water security,” she says.
The environmental license for the continuity and expansion of the Jangada mining site was granted in 2018 by the Minas Gerais Environmental Department (Semad). That’s the same license that allowed the continued operation of the Córrego do Feijão dam before its collapse.
The two mines received a joint license because they’re located in the same complex, only 1 km (0.6 mi) apart. The 2018 license, based on studies conducted at least 10 years earlier, was issued just 45 days before the collapse.
After the disaster, the license was suspended. But in 2025, the state government reinstated it and transferred it to Itaminas. The right to exploit the mining site remains with Vale, which only leased it to Itaminas. In practice, operations are carried out by both companies.
In late January this year, civil society organizations, relatives of the victims of the Córrego do Feijão dam collapse, and local residents held a series of demonstrations to demand compensation and raise the alarm about the risks of reopening the Jangada mine. On Jan. 25, they marched to the Córrego do Feijão site.
“We walked 8 kilometers [5 mi] demanding that Vale and Itaminas leave our waters alone, so we can believe in the future,” says journalist Carolina de Moura, a resident of Jangada and a member of the Cordilheira Institute, which advocates for sustainable development.
Denouncing water insecurity
For at least five years, Moura has turned up at Vale’s annual shareholder meetings to warn about the potential for water insecurity arising from the resumption of operations at the Jangada mine. She’s one of the company’s “critical shareholders” — a resistance strategy organized more than a decade ago by the International Network of People Affected by Vale, in which activists buy company shares so they can be eligible to attend the annual shareholder meetings to voice their opinions and vote critically.
At the April 2025 meeting, Moura told fellow shareholders that the Jangada mine area is part of a territory known as the Iron Quadrangle, which is under critical risk of water stress, according to studies. She alleges Vale hasn’t disclosed accurate information about its operations at the mining site or data on the impact on the local aquifer and ecosystem.
“Years before the dam collapse at Córrego do Feijão, Vale’s geologist César Augusto Paulino Grandchamp presented studies and technical information about the hydrogeology of the area to the communities of Casa Branca, Jangada and Córrego do Feijão,” Moura said at the shareholder meeting.
“According to him,” she went on, “the expansion of the Jangada mine would not cause damages to the springs that supply water to people. This person — along with Vale, TÜV Süd [a German consultancy hired to inspect safety at Vale’s dam] and 15 others — is a defendant in the criminal case regarding the dam collapse. Furthermore, his professional registration was revoked by the state engineering and architecture council. Therefore, all the technical details presented by Vale about the water situation at Jangada are not worthy of recognition or trust.”
The month after the shareholder meeting, in May 2025, Vale sent a letter to Moura saying that “all operational units and projects under implementation are preceded by detailed hydrogeological studies in order to assess potential impacts on flow rates and the water quality of nearby water bodies.” It also said that “springs located near the operations are identified, mapped and subjected to continuous monitoring throughout the mine’s life cycle.”
Vale’s letter cited a 2024 report indicating that most of the springs recorded in the area “continue to flow.” “Therefore, despite the period of water scarcity in recent years … there has been no impact on the sources of the streams surrounding the Jangada mine,” it said.
For Moura, another part of Vale’s response stood out. The company noted that operations at the Jangada mine had been halted since February 2019, shortly after the collapse of the Córrego do Feijão tailings dam, which led to the suspension of the license. It also stated that “in the context of resumption of mining by third parties, the lessee [Itaminas] will be responsible for conducting complementary hydrogeological studies — especially those aimed at assessing the impacts of lower groundwater levels. This is because such studies are essentially linked to the operational model of the new project, since the lowering of aquifer levels is directly related to mining activities and the hydrogeological control of the pit.”
In other words, at the time of the response, when the lease of the Jangada mine to Itaminas was already being formalized, Vale was preemptively disclaiming responsibility for any potential reduction in the water levels of the aquifer that supplies the springs in Jangada. Furthermore, it transferred it to “third parties” — in this case, Itaminas, which would reactivate the mining pit near the Jangada community’s springs three months after sending its letter to Moura.
Itaminas’s history is cause for concern, Moura says. “Seven of the company’s employees died during the collapse of the Fernandinho mine dam in Itabirito, also in Minas Gerais, 40 kilometers [25 mi] from the Jangada mine. That happened on May 15, 1986, when they were doing maintenance work on the dam. At 2:20 p.m. that day, there was an explosion and everything collapsed. The dam was operating beyond its capacity.”
In 2025, the Jangada Community Association, along with the Cordilheira Institute, the Córrego do Feijão Residents’ Community Association, and the Águas e Serras de Casa Branca Movement, started a petition demanding, among other things, permanent closure of the Jangada and Córrego do Feijão mining sites, as well as the cancellation of the license by the federal government.
Related stories:
Scientists now know how the Brumadinho dam disaster happened, and the lessons to learn
Indigenous villagers still lack safe land, water & food after 2019 dam burst
Banner image: Destruction caused by the collapse of the Córrego do Feijão tailings dam in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais state, in January 2019. Image courtesy of Felipe Werneck/IBAMA.
This story was first published here in Portuguese on Jan. 29, 2026.
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