How Stakeholder Engagement is Evolving at the Caldas Uranium Mining Site in Minas Gerais, Brazil - 13223
- WSP Environment and Energy, Manchester (United Kingdom)
- CNEN, Pocos de Caldas (Brazil)
- CMPC, Pocos de Caldas (Brazil)
- INB, Pocos de Caldas (Brazil)
The Caldas site is located in the Federal State of Minas Gerais in Brazil about 25 km from the city of Pocos de Caldas. While the city itself has 150,000 inhabitants there is a total population of around 0.5 million people living in an area that could potentially be influenced by the site. Uranium ore was mined and milled here between the years of 1982 and 1995, with ore extraction taking place from an open pit. Of the material removed, aside from that extracted for uranium, some was used on-site for road construction and building embankments while the remainder was disposed of onto two major rock piles. There are a number of potential historical and current environmental impacts to groundwater as a consequence of discharges into streams which then flow off site. The site is now undergoing a phase of decommissioning which includes the formulation and substantiation of a site remediation strategy. As part of a wider International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Technical Cooperation Project aimed at providing practical guidance for implementing a decommissioning and remediation plan at the site, WSP E and E were invited to lead a mission in order to provide advice on the importance and merits of stakeholder engagement and how to ultimately build an engagement program. In November 2011, WSP E and E met with personnel from the site operators, the Brazilian regulatory bodies and representatives from the local stakeholder community and explained the principles of stakeholder engagement and how the process had internationally evolved principally from a decide-announce-defend approach to a more formal two way mechanism of engagement. Historically there had been insufficient liaison between the site operator, the nuclear regulator and the environmental regulator. All parties had recognized that greater interaction was necessary. There had also been very little engagement with local stakeholders about the various activities on the site and the potential implications of these activities on human health and the environment. The main concerns of the local stakeholders were in relation to potential environmental impacts on groundwater and surface water as well as their lack of knowledge about the site's activities and how it might evolve over time. There was a feeling that the site brought no real benefit to the local community as local labor was rarely utilized when work was being undertaken. WSP E and E were asked many questions about stakeholder engagement processes and had to address a number of concerns relating to being able to construct and control an engagement program. Advice was provided on how to construct a phased program in a manner that would allow the site operator to demonstrate increased transparency and allow as wide a range of stakeholders as possible the opportunity to become engaged. We provided an important message in that engagement often had to be culture and project specific and that what might work in one country could not necessarily purely be transposed to another. Since the WSP E and E mission there has been evidence of a number of positive steps in many of the areas of stakeholder engagement related to the Caldas site. The nuclear and environmental regulators work in a more open and transparent manner and continue to undertake joint inspections of the Caldas site. They have agreed to develop a written agreement that will enable them to jointly assess and discuss the issues on the site. Both regulatory bodies had previously accompanied the site operator on a visit to the Wismut uranium mining area in Germany and as well as providing useful learning had also allowed the regulators to discuss some common issues, thus bringing them closer together. A local stakeholder group under the auspices of the Water Commission had previously been set up but now they are starting to have more regular meetings with the site operator and nuclear regulator. They are now additionally considering the formation of a site specific advisory board (based on similar lines to those at US legacy sites) in order to gain some further technical focus within the stakeholder community. The site operator has started to present and explain the proposed environmental remediation plans to various towns and cities potentially influenced by the Caldas site. The successes to date can be attributed primarily to the willingness of the site operator to engage more openly with local community representatives in addition to the enthusiasm of the Water Commission itself. Providing stakeholder engagement advice to all the relevant parties in a manner which recognized their concerns, aspirations and country specific culture was extremely important for this positive progress to have been established. The process established and the subsequent successes could provide useful learning to those countries that face similar cultural engagement challenges. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- WM Symposia, 1628 E. Southern Avenue, Suite 9-332, Tempe, AZ 85282 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 22224813
- Report Number(s):
- INIS-US-13-WM-; TRN: US14V0426045768
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: WM2013: Waste Management Conference: International collaboration and continuous improvement, Phoenix, AZ (United States), 24-28 Feb 2013; Other Information: Country of input: France
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
BRAZIL
DECOMMISSIONING
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
GROUND WATER
IAEA
MINING
OPACITY
PUBLIC HEALTH
REMEDIAL ACTION
STREAMS
URANIUM
URANIUM MINES
URANIUM ORES
URBAN AREAS