Sociedade de risco e desastres tecnológicos: o caso de Mariana/MG

Abstract

The Fundão dam collapsed on November 5th, 2015, in Mariana city / MG, causing the greatest socioenvironmental impact of recent times. Among the infinite damages caused, two communities were buried in the mineral waste mud: Bento Rodrigues and Paracatu de Baixo. Both are going through the collective resettlement process. This study proposes to observe the dynamics of the technical process of development of urban projects for both communities, through document analysis and by monitoring the working groups, focusing on the technical issues arising from the urban project construction process with the communities and entities involved. It is, therefore, a survey of positive and negative points throughout the progress of elaborating urban projects process until the final approval by their respective communities, through historical and documentary researches and using qualitative methodology. Thus, the technical groups were observed together with the affected communities and entities involved in the process of drafting and approving the urban project via legal and administrative bodies. This study recovered the history of the city's dependence on mining activities, and it also raised points regarding to the risk society established by technological disasters and the difficulties in the current Brazilian legal apparatus of fulfilling the demands of post-disaster resettlements. It was noticed that was hard to find host areas in the city limits that would allow compatible urban layouts with the original communities, there was also the impossibility of creating an urban environment, similar to the original ones, due to the current legislation. It was observed that as technological disasters have occurred in the world, political and socioenvironmental pressures have accomplished significant evolutions in legislation within the principles of prevention and precaution and, more recently, the polluter pays principle, leading companies to invest in security procedures, which has not always been enough. It is believed that today we are going through a new demand: the legal reality adaptation of regions that live with old mineral extraction areas: the compulsory collective resettlements.