Of the reports related to the intense rainfall in Barcarena, Pará in Northern Brazil in February.
Welcome also to all of you following us on webcast today. On February 16 and 17, the Barcarena region was hit by intense rainfall that flooded the region and the Alunorte alumina refinery, the biggest alumina refinery in the world.
In Hydro, we always aim to communicate in a transparent and fact-based manner. That is also the case in this situation. Information about the effects of the rainfall have come from a variety of different sources, complicating the access to accurate and fact-based information.
We therefore established an internal expert task force led by Hydro senior executive Tom Røtjer, to review the situation from a technical perspective. Tom will share the main findings and recommendations of the task force shortly.
The purpose of the internal task force has been to establish and verify the facts or circumstances from a technical perspective. The internal task force has focused on internal matters and proposals for improvement. We have also commissioned a third-party review by SGW Services, one of the leading environmental consultancies in Brazil, specialized in remediation and investigation. Lead partner, founder, and hydrogeologist Sidney Aluani, he's here today with us to present SGW's main findings and conclusions, focusing on the environmental impact, the external aspects of this event.
Today, we're pleased that we can finally present the results from the reviews of the facts and circumstances related to the rain event, answer the following two fundamental questions. Did Alunorte have an overflow from the bauxite residue deposits? 2, did the heavy rain event cause Alunorte to contaminate the local communities of Barcarena?
We will start by the President and CEO, Svein Richard Brandtzæg, who will give a brief introduction. Tom will go through the main findings of the internal task force. Sidney will go through SGW's report.
Finally, Svein Richard will go through the actions and measures Hydro is taking now to enhance Alunorte's operational performance.
After that, we'll have time for a Q&A.
We'll start with you, Svein Richard.
Thank you, Inga. I have been looking forward to this day when I can finally present to you the facts and circumstances related to the heavy rainfall event in February, and to provide an overview of the actions we are taking to resolve the Alunorte situation.
The rainfall flooded the areas of Barcarena and Alunorte, prompting Brazilian authorities to order a 50% production cut at the world's largest alumina refinery. Hydro's Alunorte plant is running at 50% capacity for the 6th week in a row, with all the uncertainty that brings to our people, to the society, and to the markets. More than ever, I am hopeful that these new reports will serve as an important basis for discussions to resolve this critical situation.
Based on internal and external reviews of the February rainfall event, I'm first and foremost very pleased that we can now confirm the following. There is no indication or evidence of any overflows from the bauxite residue deposit areas. There is no indication or evidence that Alunorte has contaminated local communities of Barcarena. Like we have said, we did have controlled but unlicensed discharged of partly treated rainwater through the internal canal, Canal Velho, into the Pará River.
The reports show that this has not had any significant or lasting environmental impact. These are the key findings and the most important confirmation today. That being said, the reports confirm that we have room for improvement in some areas, including water treatment capacity, emergency preparedness plans, trainings, and maintenance.
We will also strengthen community relations to ensure that we contribute to sustainable growth in Barcarena in line with Hydro's global principles. All these areas have already been or will be addressed with forceful actions. We will continue to work to implement necessary measures to prepare the plant for a future as the best alumina refinery in the world. Alunorte will contribute to sustainable growth in Barcarena. Hydro is also committed to investing in initiatives for a more sustainable future for Pará and Barcarena in partnership with local communities and authorities.
Summing up our actions, we will continue our work to make sure that Alunorte is recognized as the best refinery in the world, the best along all standards, operationally, environmentally, and technologically. We will prepare Alunorte for the future.
We are increasing the water treatment capacity by 50% to ensure that the plant can withstand future changing weather and climate conditions. We will step up our local community engagement and launch a new Sustainable Barcarena Initiative, and we will strengthen local environment, competence, and resources. Since the heavy rain event in mid-February, Hydro and Alunorte have faced the fundamental questions: What happened?
What environmental impact did it have? We will now get fact-based information, and I'm pleased to have Sidney Aluani and Tom Røtjer here today to present their reports, which they will do in some minutes.
I will revert after the presentations by SGW and our internal task force to address the roadmap for Alunorte and our commitment towards a better, bigger, and greener future for Alunorte and for Hydro.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
As Svein Richard said, basically the internal task force was to establish the sequence of events and come up with recommendations going forward.
You should look upon this as a kind of audit, but basically internally to reassess the status of Alunorte. When it comes to external impact on the environment, I leave that fully up to SGW because I think that's the main question when it relates to all the discussion about Alunorte and the effect on the environment.
Before we start, I'll just give a short introduction to the process because many of you don't know exactly what's happening at the refinery. I do it very simple. We have the bauxite. That's really the input when it comes to getting the alumina or the alumina at the end.
You should bear in mind that the only thing we put into the system is caustic soda, and it's water, and we get some residue, bauxite residue. Of course, caustic soda is, some of you probably know, it's a liquid we use to extract the alumina from the bauxite.
We also then measure the caustic soda or not the caustic soda, but the result of the water by pH. pH is a measurement of alkaline or if it's sour. When we look upon the cost, the way we deliver the thing out to the Pará River, we have a limitation of pH of 9. pH of 9 is the same as when you're washing your hands with a soap. That's our limitation when it comes to discharge to this river.
Bauxite in, we have caustic soda, we have water, and we have before we discharge the water and the effluents to the sea, we have to treat it, the effluent treatment plant, to between 6 and 9 in pH. For everybody, pH of 7 is neutral. When it comes to the site, it's 5.5 sq km large. That's a large area. What you should remember is that we discharge effluent or water only 1 place.
For the whole area, we catch all the water coming down, and we discharge it in 1 place to the river Pará. Means that what we collect at the bauxite residue storage areas has to be collected and brought down to the plant and treated in the effluent treatment plant before discharges in sea or to the river.
The same happens at the area of Alunorte, which is a large area as well. We have collect whatever comes down, has to go through the effluent treatment plant and go to the river. We control what is actually going to the river, and the limit is 9 in pH. We talk about residue areas, and, sometimes people talk about, bauxite residue areas or tailings dams.
This is not tailings dams. This is dry stacking. What we are putting actually on the areas is dry stuff. You can personally. Then I would say that what we put on the new storage area is much drier than what we stack here. It's, again, it's dry. What we collect is the rainwater from the area, the catchment area.
This is collected in the basins, actually four basins on the DRS1 and two on the DRS2. When people talk about overflow from the areas is actually overflow from the basins, not from the whole area. I think that's important as well, because we heard about flooding from, or flooding from, failing dams in previous times, but this is actually from these failing in the ponds we talked about.
Again, we have the neighborhood which Silje and I are going to be talking about afterwards. Again, when it talks about the location, it's very close to the neighboring communities, but there's also a lot of local industry at the area. We have Pará River, and at this point, exactly 12 kilometers across. When the Visja River is kind of small river compared to this.
When it comes to the plant itself, remember some few areas. We have the area 45. We have the Canal Novo, and we have Canal Velho, which Fabrika talked about. We have the effluent treatment area 82, and we have the anorthosite and cold storage area. This picture is actually taken the 24th of February, when we still have floods at the area.
You can see area 45 still has quite a lot of water, and you see that the basins here are full. The heavy rain, which started the 16th and the 17th, is actually 231 millimeter in 12 hours, and that's a lot. What you also should recognize is that the rain was also 900 millimeters in 1 month, in month of February.
We talk about close to 1 meter and 5.5 square kilometers. That's a lot of rain and a lot of water to take and clean in the effluent treatment plant, which has discharged at the same place to the river at one place.
All effluent rainwater has to come down to the effluent treatment plant and out to the river. What happened that day or those days was that first we had a power outage locally in the plant due to lightning, which meant that we also lost some capacity in the effluent treatment plant. The major thing was that we also had an external voltage dip to the refinery, which caused problems with equipment in the process areas.
Which meant that we had inside the plant or in the process area, we had a spill of caustic soda at a much stronger concentration than we normally have. That thing didn't go out externally. It was contained internally and then to the effluent treatment plant, causing that the effluent treatment plant lost a lot of capacity. That's the main story.
To make it simple for normal engineers, we have the three streams from the DRS. DRS 2 is the new state-of-the-art depository area for us, which comes with a steel pipe. Then we have two concrete pipes coming from the, what you call the DRS 1 to the same effluent treatment plant. While we have water or storm water, processed water from the plant itself, going to what we call a mixing box. Don't confuse yourself about mixing box.
The thing is, the only thing it does is it measures the different streams coming in. If you have a stream which is high caustic, it should go back to the process area, return to process area we use there. What happened that morning or therefore, at the lunchtime on the seventeenth was that this didn't function fully, which meant that it was going the high concentration to the effluent treatment plant.
It meant again that the capacity of the effluent treatment plant was dramatically reduced. In that case, reduced capacity here, and we had the caustic here. The alternative was actually to go through the Canal Velho which everybody heard about, which we didn't have permit to use. Again, basically used for rainwater and storm water.
The conclusion for us is that what we discharge through the Canal Velho combined with the water from the effluent treatment plant was well within the limit of the pH of 9 into the river. Basically, the volume of water coming out, so large, so diluted that we think that or we feel confident that the impact on the river is low. I leave that also up to ESR after us to talk about because that's basically what happened.
Reduced capacity in the effluent treatment plant. People then stored, left the water in the basins at the RSS to maintain the process of cleaning what was coming from the process because of the mistake or not mistake, but not function, well functioning here okay. You two heard about the area 45, and yes, it was flooding in the area.
You see in the picture, it was all over. This is basically what we call a made-on area for contractors and not part of the process area in general. Part of the investments Fabrika talked about now, we already decided on making new drainage system, new ponds and new pumping capacity to take away this as well. This water also goes to the effluent treatment plant in general, but the capacity in the area is too low.
We get back to overstating this, that we didn't have any overflow to the surroundings. We have a famous pipe you heard about, this red one, which I think also seen when we get back to. It is a pipe which was abandoned. It had very small crack inside.
We don't think that made any difference to the environment. When it comes to the bauxite effluent storage areas, which is really the key issue. Did we have an overflow? Didn't we have an overflow from the bauxite residue areas? Our confirmation is based on inspections, watching videos from every day, and we've been looking into. We can't see that we have had any spills from the basins.
Again, as I said in the beginning, it's not from the whole area. It's actually from these small brackets because this area is big. It's 60 square kilometers. Spills from those holding ponds, which we can confirm that we haven't had, I think we can say very, very strongly.
The only thing is, since we have problems with effluent treatment plant, people have been holding the water in the basins, till the capacity come up again at the water treatment plants. Which meant for the DRS1 that we lost the freeboard below the agreed freeboard of 1 meter, which is actually according to requirements. Yes, we are below the requirements of 1 meter freeboard of the basins.
On the other side, we can't say that we have had any spill. We started pumping out the water from these basins again. When it comes to the new deposit area for bauxite residue, we can confirm that the new deposit area has a very good capacity, and the basins are contributing to relieving the DRS1 during the events.
Which meant that during the whole event of the sequence we talk about, we didn't pump out any water from the DRS because the holding capacity at the ponds themselves are sufficient to withstand the rain that arrived these heavy days. You have seen this picture in the news for some time, I think, stating that we have an overflow from the DRS.
This is completely not right because this is actually internally in the whole system. It's okay as planned. What you see here is actually what it's designed for. The summary for us, because we've been looking on the main events and the main items in the news and items which is important for ourselves, because you will see more details in the report already distributed to yourself, I think.
First of all, the integrity of the deposit areas was full during the whole event of these days. We had no overflow. I think even the IBAMA and the SEMAS have confirmed the same. That's a good thing because that is something we agree upon. In order to avoid risk for uncontrolled, I would say, flow to the environment, we actually discharged through.
Sorry. We discharged through the Canal Velho. That was something done on purpose. Instead of letting the water just flow uncontrolled, decided to use the Canal Velho. We don't have the permit, still, it's a much better option than let the water flow everywhere in a controlled manner. We kept the water in the basins because that's a higher concentration of caustic.
The management, I think, did exactly what they should do when they lost the capacity originally in the effluent treatment plant. We still believe that what we discharge through this mix of water from the effluent treatment plant and Canal Velho is really in the limits of the pH 9. We have recommended quite a few items for improvements, and the major one is what Svein Richard already told about, to increase the effluent treatment plant capacity at Alunorte with 50%. And that's already sanctioned.
It's not something we talk about. That's sanctioned, and the project is already ongoing, with other items also related to the same, to improve the water management of the whole site. When it comes to recommendations, we talked about increased effluent treatment capacity, and that's basically.
If you should sum up technicality, that's it. We need a new water balance study. Everybody's now talking about climate change. We really have to look into, okay, yes, we are now so much. We know it's a lot of rain now.
We have designed for a lot of rain. You see the intensity of rain, the duration of rain, which is something we really have to look into to see what is the requirements for the future. Update emergency plans, that's what we said. Not only that it rains a lot. You have cascading effects from other events at the same time. That's really something you have to train on.
Of course, finalize the closure of the DRS1, the first residue area, because that area is some 3 square kilometers, and if you start closing that one, you also reduce the catchment area of the handling of all the water coming down. That's a focus. Again, to close the DRS1 take some time because it has to be viable for the future.
The pressure is there now to make that quicker than originally planned. We need a good dialogue with authorities. We need a good dialogue with them to make all this happening also in a short time. These are things we like to have in place for before the next rainy season. Environment is important, and I think it's very good to mention about it and talk about it.
We need a new baseline because we need a baseline to compare the development, what's happening in the area. Remember, Alunorte is not the only plant or the only industry in Barcarena, so we have to look upon the wide area. Then have a baseline so we can compare, monitor, and see if anything change. If it doesn't change, that's good.
That's the way it should be. We need a baseline because now it's everybody talk of measurements, but they don't have something to compare with that. That's a part of the problem, I think. We like to invite academics in Brazil, Pará. Pará is a state. Norway, just like we do in Paragominas, to have a R&D problem going on. We want to improve the environment, improvement of the monitoring of the developments.
Again, establish baseline and then a more improved monitoring than we have today. That's the number 1. I think that's basically it. No overflow from basins. Discharge without permit, recover our value. That's really the whole story. We have some flooding in Area 45 with those spills to the outside. That's it. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Sidney Aluani.
I'm the partner and founder of Just Two Dollar Services in Brazil. We are one of the leading companies, environmental consultants companies in the country. I'm here to show you and present to you today the results of our first part of our assessment.
Before starting, I just want to apologize for my bad English. My mother tongue is Portuguese. Not easy to speak in English, but I'll do my best. We were hired by Hydro to conduct a independent site assessment in Alunorte, Pará, focused especially in this first moment on the rains event that took place in 16 and 17 of February.
Our main objectives were to understand and check any evidences of what happened in the site during those days, during that event, and understand if that caused anything related to the environment or the communities and what happened inside the plant. I can say that by now, we have some. We're certain that we have reached some of these targets very clearly.
Tom has already showed the location, but for those who have never been to Brazil before, this is the Amazon area. Pará state is maybe half of the Amazon. This is the Barcarena site, Pará River. This river is quite big, and it starts here in the middle of the north part of Brazil. It's between 12 kilometers wide and 15 kilometers wide, depending on the point you check.
It's a big river. Here we can have. I'm going to go quickly through this 'cause Tom has already presented. I just want to highlight the port area, the refinery area, and the residues deposits, DRS1 and DRS2. The communities, Vila Nova here, Bom Futuro, this region, and Burajuba. We also need to check other possible sources of impact, and this is one of them. That is an open dam that receives all the residues from Barcarena city.
There are other companies around here. We're going to talk a lot during this presentation also about Murucupí River. Well, although we have all those process areas, our focus was in the wastewater treatment plant area, Area 45 and Murucupí River at this moment.
What happened in Barcarena in February was unusual, even for Amazon standards in terms of rain. You all know, you have probably already read a lot about this, about those 200 and something mm of rain in 10 day, 10 hours or 1 day. I want to specify better this rain. It was distributed, although, 10 hours, it's the beginning of the rain and the end of this rain. It's not 22.4 mm per hour constantly. It was 70 mm of rain in 1 hour, actually 45 minutes. We had 6 other hours of very light rain. Finally, we got the biggest. It was 150 mm of rain in 2 up to 3 hours. This is a lot. This is a lot.
Even with this event, I'm highlighting this because it makes a lot of sense in the whole context, and it was one of our first targets to understand. We tried to rebuild those days. We were there on March, and the first challenge was to rebuild what happened during the rain. We made a modeling of this rain and the influences in the plant to understand what happened. We came to several conclusions, several interesting conclusions. First of all, I'm pretty sure there was no overflow in the solid waste basins. There is no evidence of that at all. Our modeling brought us the confidence to affirm this. There was a flood in Area 45, this one.
I may say I like this because I'm going to explain to you in the following slides. Sorry. Since this happened in the first hour of rain, I mentioned. What happened here? It started raining very hard, a lot, the level of water went up. The pumps responsible for pumping this water out to the wastewater treatment plant, they stopped working due to the water. They break down.
They stopped pumping, the water started accumulating in this area. With this accumulation, it was found later that there was an old pipe. It's located in this position. It's an old pipe from the construction of the plant. I don't know. There is no register for what it was used really. Maybe, when it was being constructed to drain water, whatever.
This pipe, it's concreted in the internal side of the plant. It's all concreted. This is the picture of this concrete seal. We checked that there are some crackings, and these are. You can imagine this is very small. It's like a hair. Some crackings.
Due to this flooding, the amount of water and this pipe here underwater, this cracking in the seal, there was some water going through the seal and reaching the other part of the pipe, which is right after this barrier. This picture is after the event, 'cause Alunorte has resealed the pipe. Now it's completely closed. There was a small leakage through this seal to outside. Just after this event, Alunorte hired a company, an environmental company.
They immediately took some samples of the soil because they were here, and there was a lot of things published already that this water should have reached the Murucupi River , which is around here. The soil sampling that was made from this point up to the Murucupi River , they showed no evidence of impact. We should expect a more basic water. The pH should be higher, and there is no change in the pH of the soil in this area at all. Also considering the amount of water in this leakage, it's really not probable that any of this water reached at Murucupi River .
I've been there was no not a single evidence of this. I think this is another part we have found out, and it's clear from my understanding. The other thing is the discharge into Canal Velho. The next slide will help us to understand this better. During the second period of rain, I mentioned those 150 millimeters of rain in 3 hours. During this moment, all the basins, the containment basins of the plant went really full. The wastewater treatment plant was in its capacity, maximum capacity of treatment. I think it was a very stressing moment for the staff in the plant because there was a real risk of an overflow in the whole plant, really.
In my opinion, They did the best they could do in that situation, in my opinion. If I was there as a environmental expert, I couldn't make it better. We have some effluent. We can say contaminated effluent. It, it's not contaminated, but it's industrial effluent. We don't have a sample from this, but it's industrial effluents inside the plant contained in the basins. We have a lot of rain coming, but also we had previously a lot of rain that washed up everything. When we decided to discharge this extra rain that was coming to the plant, they were sending out the cleanest water available in the plant. Otherwise this would be mixture with the other contaminated water, and for sure it would be worse.
During this discharge, there was another electric breakdown in the plant. We had a spill in the process. This was controlled and registered. Some caustic soda effluent went through the drainage system, and they kept the discharge controlling the pH, treating the pH in the channel of discharge for not causing any impact in the Pará River. I think I'm going to go to the next one 'cause it's going to be better. Here. This is what I want to show to you. This is the first hour rain. Since the pump stopped in the RFL part, this caused the flood. This is absolutely linked in hours and time with what happened.
We have the register of the pump failure at exactly the same time we had this rain and this flood started. I'm very comfortable with this. This also is linked to the decision to use the Canal Velho. The model is okay. This was discharged, a total of 170,000 cubic meters. I think that I've read a lot of things about this discharge, but I must say that we had a controlled discharge in this point. We have been on site in the last weeks. We took some samples from the effluents not treated in the plant to understand what kind of effluents or what the composition of the effluents are, and what should be being discharged into Pará River in that day.
The effluents we sampled and analyzed without any treatment in the plant and without the rain influence its dilution. They showed no presence of any significant element. Comparing to the standard regulations for discharging in water bodies in Brazil, everything was under the limits. Based on this evidence. Of course, we're not there.
We, we don't have a sample from the event, but we tried to rebuild this event on a worse situation, I think. There is no evidence of any impact could be caused in the Pará River, really. Even though if you had something coming through the river, we're talking about 50,000 cubic meters per second flow and about 100 cubic meter flow in some hours. This, this graphic is the same.
This one is for the refinery plant, and this is for the DRS1, and this is for the DRS2. We concluded that we have plenty of containment space for that rain, both residues deposits and even for a bigger event in the future, they are quite appropriate in terms of volumes, containment volumes. Well, I had started talking about this.
It was a sampling based on the data and the need to understand the relationship between what happened inside the plant and the communities and environment, river, and so on. We took some samples, surface water and soil, bauxite, coal ashes red mud, to understand what is inside, what's in the drainage system, what's going outside, and to see what we are dealing with.
I'm not talking about this yet because it's easier if I show you the results. These are the sampling points in the communities. River. These are the results. Mainly, we analyzed it. This TDS, it's total dissolved, okay? I'm not going to go through this explanation right now. If anyone wants to understand, I'm happy to explain, but it takes another half an hour to explain this.
Summarizing, it's a total sample, and the other, it's filtered, taking out the solids. If you don't know, the waters, the river waters in this region, it's brown, full of sediment, full of particles of soil. When we analyzing dissolved metals, we should analyze dissolved metals, not solid in the soil. It's different. It's methodology. It's scientific design.
We did both just to be sure and to compare what's going on even in the best or worst case. The results brought us mostly aluminum, everywhere, and phosphorus. The interesting thing is the concentrations of aluminum are very consistent. They're very similar to each other. We must understand. Part of this study is kind of a research.
We must understand that this is a region where the soil is very rich in aluminum, iron, manganese. This is natural in this region of the world. I can say that this is totally aligned with what would be expected if there was a industrial plant here or not. There are some other information.
We have made some research from other sources, other studies, and there are several information regarding this. Even the authorities have taken some samples and have published some results, and it's all consistent with this. These are the results of the communities. I was presenting only the elements that were present in the results. Here, I prefer to mention aluminum, lead, and iron.
Although there is no lead, there's no iron anywhere. There were a lot of people saying there was a lead contamination and anything else. I want to highlight two things in terms of sampling and analyzing water samples. First is methodology. We already have lots of problems, not only Brazil, worldwide, in terms of results of analysis and sampling. It's so sensitive.
We're talking about parts per billion, micrograms per liter. It's this. It's almost nothing. The limits are very, very low for these compounds. Methodology is very important because depending on how you take the sample, how you analyze the sample, you can have in the same sample, you can have different results and big difference between them.
There is an accreditation in place. There is an ISO standard for this that aims to bring everyone in the same methodology to be sure that all the accredited laboratories are doing the same thing in the same way to be consistent with the results. This was our recommendation to leader in that moment to run an accredited sampling and analysis. It was what it did. The second thing, it's the regulation.
Having some concentration of anything in the sample doesn't mean it's a problem. Here, these are the legal standard levels maximum for drinking water in Brazil. For example, lead is 10. If the result of the lead analysis is 9, it's potable. It's fine.
There's no problem at all. Mineral water has several minerals. If someone used to like those multivitamins, you have all these metals in those multivitamins you take every morning. I want to just point it out because I've read several documents making a lot of noise because there was something. We really compared. We worked these documents using exactly the same results. I'm not questioning procedures, I'm not questioning results, methodology, nothing.
I'm taking exactly the same results, comparing to the regulation and the toxicity and risk, which is the important thing here. When you do this, you have almost nothing. This I came to my final slide. Just summarizing everything. I can state that there was no leakage. No, sorry. The leakage in the area 45 was not sufficient. It was not enough for causing any contamination in the Miricoia River.
The emergency discharge into Canal Velho, which we understood it was mostly storm water, also brings no significant impact into Pará River. I have already explained this, the comparison between volume discharged and the river, and I should have add here regulation. There is a specific regulation for defining the limits for discharging to a water body. There was no overflow.
Everybody already said that. I agree. We need to keep this work going. There's a lot of things still to understand. I've been talking about this and understand the whole region, the big region. I have the sensation, a very strong sensation there is a lot in the background. Like aluminum, several metals are in the background, natural occurrence in the region, so we must be confident on the proportions, concentrations, and locations. I'm showing just a few ones. I forgot mentioning.
I just want to be sure. We analyzed all the elements. Our analysis covered the whole regulation. Among the metals which are being discussed here, we found non-detectable or low concentrations only in all the results, but one spot.
This is only this one spot we had 220 parts per billion of aluminum. The standard level is 200. It's quite close. It's something we need to recheck because also we're not sure about the source, if it's natural, it's something else, it's the sample. It's something we need to recheck. I think that's it. The work is still ongoing, and these are the first part.
The key questions I think we have answered already in this first part. Now it's a long work of sampling, analyzing, and checking, and building a big model for the area. Okay. Well, I hope you understand what I have just said. I'm going to be glad to answer any question. No. Later. I think we'll do it after Sunday. After. Sorry.
I'll be available here. Thank you.
Thank you. Dear all, we have now gone through the reports from the internal task force and the preliminary report from SGW.
As you have seen, it points us in clear direction for some next steps. In this presentation, I would like to point to which actions we have already initiated or implemented, and also share our plans for further action. First, let me give a brief overview of the main formal processes involving Alunorte on the federal and state level. On the state level, there is a constructive dialogue ongoing with both the government and the state environmental agency, SEMAS. The discussions with the Ministério Público is currently on hold, as Hydro and Ministério Público is currently has different views on the factual basis.
Hydro wishes to continue the dialogue based on correct factual basis and have asked the court to appoint an independent review of the Evandro Chagas report, which Ministério Público seems to base many of their conclusions upon.
The Pará State Congress has established a parliamentary commission of inquiry to investigate the environmental and social situation in Barcarena, including Alunorte. The first visit to the refinery was on the April second. On the federal level, a decree was published creating a management committee, which held a first meeting also on April second. The objective of this committee is to manage and evaluate responses to possible environmental impacts in Barcarena. An external committee was created in the House of Representatives in Brasília to investigate the situation related to Alunorte.
A congressional hearing took place on March 13th, where the federal environmental agency, IBAMA, confirmed there has been no spills from Alunorte's bauxite residue deposits. IBAMA's order to halt operations at the DRS2 bauxite residue deposit and press filter remain effective. The same committee filed a request to create a parliamentary commission of inquiry at the House of Representatives in Brasília, the request has not been reviewed yet.
In addition to these main processes, there are numerous other administrative, political, and legal proceedings, making for a highly complex and demanding process when seen from the Alunorte's perspective. There is no doubt that we find ourselves in a highly challenging situation that is untenable in the long run. We want to find a common path for collaboration with our many stakeholders, we see this path running through three main areas.
First, we have already implemented several short-term measures for the technical and environmental robustness of Alunorte. Second, we are now announcing technical and environmental measures. Third, we are stepping up the community relations and community and social responsibility by establishing and funding the long-term Sustainable Barcarena Initiative.
Through the actions I will now present, we seek to find mutual long-term solutions and establish a common ground and strengthen our platform for the dialogue. I would now like to take you through each of these three focus areas. Let us start with the measures we already have implemented or initiated. These include short-term improvements of the water management systems and treatment capacity, maintenance systems, as well as emergency preparedness plans and training.
Investments of NOK 500 million in the refinery water treatment system, increasing treatment capacity by 50% and storage capacity by 150%. A project to review and consider further strengthening of Alunorte's water treatment system as a proactive response to possible future climate and weather changes. Development of sustainable closure concept for DRS1. Update of emergency procedures, including review of the communication practices for local communities during and following any potential emergencies.
This will also include training for the communities nearby Alunorte. Strengthening of local and central environmental resources and competence. Third-party environmental effect study on quality of air, water, springs, soils, and forests. Toxicological study to evaluate health conditions of people in the communities nearby Alunorte.
In addition to the comprehensive list of already implemented or initiated measures, we today also will announce that we will initiate further actions on the technical and environmental areas.
We will further invest in maintenance and equipment upgrade, including measures to address improvement potential identified in the reports, and we will further strengthen collection, testing, analysis, and monitoring of environmental and health data, including water quality. We will increase the number of water sampling wells at and around Alunorte's premises for improved monitoring of environment. Since the unusually heavy rainfall in February, Alunorte has put in place several short-term social and health activities.
In the communities of Burajuba, Bom Futuro, and Vila Nova, we have now delivered around 1 million liters of drinking water to around 1,800 families. We also partnered with the Barcarena Municipality and the State of Pará to put in place health assistance to local communities. So far, around 2,100 people have used these health services.
We have also engaged the Red Cross to provide medical assistance and to map health needs and to take blood samples of the local or in the local communities. When it comes to community dialogue, which I think is especially important in a situation like this, we have held several community meetings, and we have weekly meetings with the risk committee of the civil defense to facilitate the dialogue. We have partnered with the NGO, Jabiru.
Through the community dialogue we have had over the last weeks, we realized that we need to become more long-term, reliable partner to the communities around us. Only when we achieve that can we help address the societal changes, challenges around our plant in Barcarena. What we heard from our neighbors is that we have not been close enough to them, and they did not rely on the information we provided. I now hope that we can join together and find a common path for sustainable change.
As you just saw, we have put in place several short-term initiative services to support the local communities around our plant. We also thinking longer term, and today we are launching the Sustainable Barcarena Initiative, which is an initiative to support the broad collaboration for social change in Barcarena.
Around NOK 250 million to support the broad collaboration for social change. Separate, it will be a separate legal entity with its own organization, staff, and mandate, financed but not, but independent to Alunorte. The initiative will provide capacity building, establish a public platform for data monitoring and evaluation, develop social and environmental projects. Yudo will act in partnership with communities, academia, authorities, unions, and relevant organizations. Yudo is a company built on cooperation, openness, and sustainability.
We seek mutually beneficial partnerships everywhere where we operate in the world. Following the heavy rainfall in February, we have initiated and implemented a series of initiatives at Alunorte, representing an immediate response to further strengthening the refinery's capacity and capability to deal with extreme weather conditions.
We also want to lift the bar for Alunorte's environmental performance, future-proofing our operations to cater for any changes in the climate. Lastly, we firmly believe investing in our communities to support social development. Alunorte wants to be a long-term partner of the Pará society. We want to join efforts to ensure a more viable future for communities near Alunorte.
We are committed to ensure operational safety and effective environmental management. We rely on our employees and partners to move forward, generating jobs and sustainable development in Barcarena and Pará. Thank you for your attention.
Okay. We open for questions, from, the audience, here in Oslo. Any questions?
Well, good morning. I would just like to touch on the positions from the Instituto Evandro Chagas and the water sampling that they conducted at Sapucaia. How do you explain the discrepancy between your commission report and local results? What date were your water samples taken?
It's very testing for me with the explanation of the question, but I think I leave the question to our SGW representative.
I just would ask you to make the question again, just for be completely clear for me. Regarding the Instituto? Please.
The question is the discrepancy between the Instituto Evandro Chagas and their results of the metal sampling and your results that you presented, and there seems to be a discrepancy there. How do you explain that discrepancy, that difference? What dates were your samples in the area taken? Could that affect the results? Do you discredit the Brazilian results from the Instituto Evandro Chagas? Do you consider them wrong?
No. It's a very good question. I would like to make this clear. It's not a question of being wrong or being right. As I told you, there's a methodology for sampling. I'm an expert in this, just probably there are several experts in Instituto Evandro Chagas and everywhere. Depending on the way I took a sample, take a sample, sorry, I can have different results depending on how sharp is my methodology, how do I follow specific standards when I'm collecting the samples. For example, we have no information that.
Actually, before this, that's why there is a certification in this process, 'cause you need to control the bottle, the equipment used, calibration, 'cause all of these parameters will influence in the quality of the sample and in the final result. Also, you need to be sure that your analytical methodology is reliable. This don't mean that you're doing a good job or you're doing your best or not. This is just the methodology. What we checked in the report, they are not accredited for neither sampling or analyzing.
They're about to be. They're in the process of becoming.
That's great. When they are, they'll be. There is nothing real and that can tell me or anyone else for sure they took those samples exactly like the methodology, because I have no register, no evidence of this. I know, it may sound strange, but it's not. That's why the accreditation exists, just to make us sure that the work is being made correctly and in the same way of others.
On the other hand, what I presented here, and we were very careful with this, are absolutely accredited procedure for sampling and analyzing. All the sequence of events are absolutely under the accreditation, and the results are being presented right now. If I'm going to give you back the question.
If you're looking for two different results, one certified and another one non-certified, which is more reliable? The one with the certification and tracking because there's holding times. I don't know which bottle was used, what the preservant. If you don't filter, we don't know if it's filtered or not. There are a lot of questions regarding the sampling.
The instruments used for sampling were calibrated. When? You need to track all this information to be sure you're doing the same thing. I honestly prefer the accredited re-result. Most of the environmental agencies, the most important environmental agencies in Brazil, they demand accreditation. They don't accept no accreditation results. More, SEMAS, I was interested because SEMAS is the same.
Even in the, in the Alunorte permit, SEMAS states that they must keep a sampling, a monitoring program using accredited laboratories. It's not me, it's the how it is.
Your report has been commissioned by the company. This report has not. My other question that you didn't answer is, what date were your samples taken? Because the incident was about seven weeks ago.
What date? Sorry. March, the end of March. After one month.
Okay.
There's a question at the back. Yeah. Okay. Well, sorry. Actually, Juliana.
Yeah.
head of, environment in Hydro. I guess you would like to add something?
Yeah, yes, hello. It's Juliana. I was the head of environment at Hydro.
I think you need to speak in that one, then everybody can hear you.
Speak in both.
Thank you. Sorry. SGW makes a very important point about accreditation, I think there's also a second point that needs to be made. Even if we take the results of IC in good faith and assume that they are robust, it's important to note that they have failed to put the results in context. The heavy metals that they have recorded, the results that they present, and the figures in their report are all below the relevant resolution limits, both in terms of CONAMA 357, we've also compared them to the international drinking guidelines from the World Health Organization. All of the values found by the Evandro Chagas report and presented in their first report are below the relevant limits.
Thank you. Another question there.
Do you set as well.
Yeah.
Maybe you need the microphone.
Hello. Yeah, I'm Runa Skarbø from the Bellona Foundation. I have two questions for Mr. Brandtzæg. First is on this ambition for Alunorte to become the best environmental plant. Now, I know you have already someone with environmental aspirations for years. How will you work differently now to achieve this in the local management? As this seems to me, has already been a focus for many years, for your concerns around Alunorte's plant. The second point, you're all putting this forward now. Apparently, there has been no leakage. It's all been fine, basically, and the water that was that they let go of has not really caused any harm.
At the same time, you're spending NOK 500 million on improvements on the local area, and you're saying that you need to raise the competence of environmentally of the local management. Can you please just elaborate on that paradox a little bit?
Thank you very much for good question.
With regard to our ambitions, we have the same ambition in Brazil as we have in all the other 39 countries where we're operating in the world. With regard to the technical part of establishing Alunorte as the best plant, not only operationally, but also with regard to environmental performance, there are a lot of long-term initiatives that was established a long time before the rainfall in February, which is very much also related to reduce the emissions in general. I would say that the technical part of it is not pocket science. We know what we should do, and we know which actions that we have to put in place.
It will take some time, some of the initiatives, like the water treatment capacity, was a decision we took very early because we decided not to come in a similar situation again.
The management are sitting with so heavy rainfall that they have to use a channel where we don't have a license, even if that was probably, as you said, maybe the right decision, it goes without license, and that is not something we are doing in Hydro in all other places we operate in. To prevent that, we now have made a decision to increase the water capacity with 50%. I think what with regard to the other initiatives here, I think we will come back to what is the key learning points after what happened.
I think one thing that we can say is that we haven't had good enough contact with local communities. Also the fact that the emergency plans or the emergency training there was not at the level that we were expecting from corporate at least. That is why they've already now put in place these plans. I'm sure there will be also other elements that key experiences and key learning points that we also will bring with us when we have now come through this crisis.
Just to everyone that's from the media, from Bellona's point of view, this Alunorte really shows that we're now going to away from climate risk to actually climate consequence. In this case, it cost you 500 million NOK. I think this is something we will see across the industries really now, as this rainfall is not just a 1,000-year potential, but it's actually happening.
Yeah. We, in fact, after the heavy rainfall that caused the leakage in 2009, that was two years before we took over as the main owner, the capacity of water treatment was increased with 40%. That was preparing Alunorte for a 1,000-year rain. Now we are preparing Alunorte for a 10,000-year rain. The 10,000-year rain may come much more frequently, as you say, also due to the climate change.
Okay. Any more questions from the audience now? Doesn't seem like it. I think we will finish up and have time for one and one afterwards.
Thank you very much for joining us, and have a nice day. Thank you.