Construction of the FIOL railway line linking a deep-water port in Bahia state to the BR-153 highway in Tocantins state is fully underway following a successful bid by the region’s largest iron ore miner
Construction of the FIOL railway line linking a deep-water port in Bahia state to the BR-153 highway in Tocantins state is fully underway following a successful bid by the region’s largest iron ore miner.
Besides transporting 18 million metric tons of ore per year, the railroad will have capacity to transport an additional 42 million tons of cargo, including grain grown in the Matopiba region, Brazil’s fastest-growing agricultural frontier in the Cerrado biome
In the municipality of Caetité in Bahia, headquarters of the Pedra de Ferro mine and starting point of the stretch of railway to be operated by the mining company, people are reporting cases of property and environmental damage and broken agreements with the community.
Residents say they fear that agribusiness will invade their still-untitled lands, and that a tailings dam proposed by the miner could collapse with deadly consequences.
It happened eight years ago: Elicarlos Ferreira da Silva and his family were returning home one afternoon from the town of Caetité in Brazil’s Bahia state when they were stopped by workers from the West-East Integration Railway (FIOL) project near their home village of Serragem. There was to be another detonation to blast rock, the workers said, and the family needed to wait until it was over.
Once they were allowed to continue to their home, they were shocked at what they found. “It was horrible when we got home. All of us burst into tears. We didn’t know what to do,” says Elicarlos, who was born in the village and has lived there his whole life. “This wall [of the house] was broken, the roof was also broken in, the house was full of rocks and we didn’t know what to do.”
Worst of all, in the middle of their living room they found a boulder that had been blown clean through the wall of their house, leaving a window-size hole in the brickwork. The rock still sits in the living room today, a reminder that the family has still not been compensated by the FIOL project developer, Valec Engenharia, Construções e Ferrovias S.A., a state-run company. “I filed a lawsuit against them seven years ago and it’s never been resolved,” Elicarlos says.
That wasn’t the family’s first such experience. Ten months prior, their roof had been damaged by another detonation. Elicarlos says the subcontractor company hired by Valec to do the blasting was supposed to repair the damage. “On the day of the [second] blast, they told us the company would indemnify the house and give us a new one. Eight days later, they said they would just repair it, but I didn’t agree to it,” he says. “They had told us that the structure of the house had been too badly damaged.”
Elicarlos’s case isn’t the only one of its kind linked to the FIOL project. Throughout southwestern Bahia, between the municipalities of Bom Jesus da Lapa and Caetité, there have been constant complaints about FIOL’s construction activities among people living in small farming villages and quilombos, traditional Afro-Brazilian communities established by former slaves. Construction of the railway line began in 2011 and has progress slowly since then. The line will link the port of llhéus in Bahia to the BR-153 highway in the municipality of Figueirópolis, in neighboring Tocantins state, but along the way it has left a trail of grievances.
“FIOL has destroyed important areas of vegetation and water sources, destroying economically productive areas in the countryside,” says José Beniezio da Silva, a representative of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), an agency of the Catholic Church that helps farmers in the region. “It causes trouble inside the communities because of blocked roads, displacement and other contradictions. There were no public consultations or debates to inform the population of the project’s many impacts and contradictions.”
He says that despite reports and proof of a number of violations, “the people continue to be unprotected by the state and have no perspective for being reimbursed for the innumerous crimes committed. Basically, the FIOL construction has created a path of injustice and inhumanity.”
Lucidalva Silveira Nascimento, who lives in the village of Fazenda Invernada, also in the Caetité region, sums up the complaints of many residents: “We aren’t against [the construction]. What we are against is what the company has done and continues to do: to neglect and disrespect the people who live here.”
She adds that when the company arrived in the area, “the people really suffered. There was a lot of noise, a lot of dust and a lot of ignorance on the part of the people who worked there.” In her case, the detonations hurled rocks that damaged the roof of her home; repairs were never made. “In the windy season, we’re afraid the house will fall in on us because the walls shake,” Silveira says. “When it rains, my whole house gets wet inside.”
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