Curionópolis, Pará – Serra Pelada mine, in southeastern Pará, attracted Brazilians from several areas in the search for riches in the 1980s, when it was in operation. Simple people, contaminated by the “gold fever”, came to work in the huge dig in the mountain, which became a true human anthill, whose images surrounded Brazil and the world at the time.
The mine was closed by the federal government in the 1990s, but gold production promises to rise again through a modern mine operated by the Canadian Colossus, associated to the Mining Cooperative of Serra Pelada (Coomigasp), which won the mining rights after Vale, the previous owner, gave them up.
The site does not bring to mind the confusion of men covered in mud who worked in the immense hole dug in the earth of the main open-air mine in the world. The hole has now become a lake due to the accumulated rainwater and mud.
This was the setting visited by ANBA on Wednesday (7), in the E.torQ Amazon Journey, a trip by car from São Paulo to the Amazon in Pará state, organized by the Association of Foreign Correspondents and sponsored by Fiat, Goodyear and Tesacom.
Colossus started working on the mine in June this year, in the area close to the former mining grounds. Excavation, for the time being, is done using diggers, and has covered a length of 40 meters and depth of four meters, but with the arrival of two immense drills in the near future, similar to those used to dig metro line tunnels, the work should develop faster and production should begin in December next year.
Extraction from the mine should reach 1,000 tonnes of ore a day, with a concentration of gold that may vary from 7.5 to 20 grams per tonne, according to the director general of the project, Luiz Carlos Celaro. “It is considered a high volume," he said. In this respect, the enterprise promises high profitability.
For means of comparison, he said that Paracatu mine, in Minas Gerais, where he worked before, presented average concentration of 0.45 grams of gold per tonne, and was still profitable due to the high value of the metal.
The project forecasts four kilometres of tunnels and galleries, to reach a depth of 400 meters around the former mining grounds. For such, the water that formed the lake will be drained to reduce pressure on the structures.
Total investment is forecasted to reach US$ 80 million, according to Celaro, and investment has already reached around 50 million reals (US$ 30 million) in research, works and social actions in the community that still lives in Serra Pelada Village, the base for the gold diggers.
Some 80,000 men worked in the region, few of whom were successful, others made money and soon lost it, and many left the region as poor as they were when they got there. Just to give an idea, the city of Curionópolis – named after Sebastião Curió, the officer who was the powerful coordinator of the mining grounds – had 38,678 inhabitants in 1991, but its population fell to 17,944 people in 2009, according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
Ghsot city (almost)
Without money to move, or simply hoping to make a profit from the gold of the region, around 600 families still live in the impoverished Serra Pelada Village, a small settlement with earthen streets, wooden houses and lacking basic sanitation. Different from the "mushroom cities" that arose and disappeared completely during the Gold Rush in the United States in the 19th Century, the village in Paraná that insists on existing as a living-dead witness of the recent past.
There, Serra Pelada Companhia de Desenvolvimento Mineral (Serra Pelada Mining Development Company), the joint venture established between Colossus and Coomigasp for development of the project, is working on developing actions like medical services, garbage collection, school works, grading of the road that connects Curionópolis to the city, donations, creation of a professional training centre and leisure activities. The former miners who live there are mostly elderly and many of these initiatives are turned to their children and grandchildren.
Colossus owns 75% of the business and Coomigasp, 25%. The cooperative has around 42,000 associates, that is, just a small share is still living in Serra Pelada, but frustration regarding the poverty of decades remains and the region is still subject to conflicts.
Managers of the project are trying to take on local labour. The offspring of the miners, for example, are part of the safety team of the enterprise, a team of 54 people.
Daughter of mining
One of the life stories greatly influenced by mining is that of the current deputy mayor of Curionópolis, Iraides Campos. She got to the region in 1981, at age 15, taken by her parents. Her father was a farmer in Goiás and travelled to Serra Pelada to try his luck out as a gold digger. According to Iraides, he found a significant volume of gold.
“My father is still here [in Curionópolis] today, but he got poor," said the deputy mayor. "That happened to all those diggers who found significant gold here,” she added. She, however, managed to set up her life in the city . Separated and a mother of two daughters who are going to college, Iraides is the owner of weekly paper O Regional, of an advertising agency and of a real estate agency.
She believes that the city is about to enter a cycle of development, as, apart from the Colossus project, Vale plans to produce iron ore in an area called Serra Leste, an extension of Carajás mine, which is in the city, and should generate any direct and indirect jobs.
Hope resides in the comparison with the neighbouring Parauapebas, where Carajás mine is. There, the population and business are growing and high-end residential condominiums are being launched. To have an idea, the per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Parauapebas is 23,000 Brazilian reals (US$ 13,700), whereas in Curionópolis it is 4,400 reals (US$ 2,600), according to the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE).
*Translated by Mark Ament
