Brazil: Environmentalists Fear Permanent Mining Damage

About a hundred people demonstrated today in Rio outside the Vale mining company. Smearing mud on the property, protesters shouted, “It was not an accident” and “VALE, you killed me.” Environmentalists are concerned that last week’s avalanche of mud and mining wastes from two collapsed dams may have caused permanent damage to the region’s ecosystem. Drinking water for a quarter of a million people has already been cut off and waterways are saturated with a dense orange sediment, which could reduce oxygen levels in the water and diminish the fertility of farmland. TeleSUR