The Wall Street Journal - 14.11.2019

A10| Thursday, November 14, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

The cash from Vale is “just

hush money,” he said, taking a

break from clearing land for

new burial space.

The 64-year-old, who has

worked at the graveyard for

more than 20 years, cried as

he pointed out longstanding

family tombs, freshly opened

and marked for those who

died Jan. 25. “I knew all of

them,” he said.

Mariana, 80 miles east of

Brumadinho, offers a glimpse

into the future. In November

2015, another of Vale’s mine-

waste dams, jointly owned

with BHP Group Ltd., col-

lapsed and killed 19 people.

In the following year, unem-

ployment soared to 26% from

mid-single digits, Mayor Du-

arte Júnior said. Crime and

drug abuse also escalated.

Within two years, as mining

royalties fell, Mariana’s munic-

ipal revenue dropped by 21%.

Businesses closed, the mayor

said, and public services were

squeezed at a time when more

people, having lost jobs and

health insurance, needed help.

Unlike in Brumadinho, Vale

expects to resume its Mariana

operations, bringing to many a

bittersweet sense of relief.

“We lost 19 people and it was

very difficult,” Mr. Júnior said.

“But to lose 270?...our suffer-

ing is so great, but in Bru-

madinho it’s unimaginable.”

The Wall Street Journal re-

ported in February that em-

ployees at Vale and its safety

inspector TÜV SÜD knew for

months of dangerous condi-

tions at the dam. A spokes-

woman for Vale said the com-

pany wasn’t aware of any

imminent or critical risks to

the structure. TÜV SÜD said

only that it was cooperating

with the authorities.

Weeks after the disaster,

Vale gave each victim’s family

$25,000. It paid an additional

$175,000 in damages to rela-

tives who agreed to settle out

of court. It also gave $13,

to anyone living next to the

mine. Nearby farmers and

some eligible businesses re-

ceived $4,000.

Vale agreed to pay more

than 100,000 men, women and

children in the region as much

as $250 a month, equal to the

salary of a full-time minimum

wage job. The payments end

next month.

Mr. Klein said the company

has tried to persuade resi-

dents during community meet-

ings to use the compensation

money to prepare for the fu-

ture. The advice has been

widely ignored.

“The dam’s collapse was

such a shock that people

think, well, I don’t know if I’m

even going to be alive tomor-

row,” said Nadir Damasceno,

62. Sales at her furniture store
    so far this year are up 50%
    over last year. The surge be-
    gan as soon as Vale announced
    the $250 monthly payments.
    Wardrobes and kitchen cabi-
    nets are in particularly high

demand, she said.

Perfume and cosmetics

sales soared at the nearby

pharmacy, along with antide-

pressants and sleeping pills.

“Sometimes people just want

to buy something to feel bet-

ter,” said owner Luciano Pas-

sos. He knew about 50 of the

people killed.

Customers are buying more

expensive cuts of meat, butch-

ers said. Some shoppers, game

to try sushi, ask bemused ca-

shiers how to cook it.

“Every weekend someone is

throwing a barbecue. People

are spending like crazy,” said

Fernando Santos de Jesus, 34,

owner of a notary service.

Registrations of new cars and

motorcycles at his office are

up about 70% over the same

period last year, he said.

Some residents who lost

close family members are buy-

ing vehicles on credit, gam-

bling that they will win sub-

stantial court settlements

from Vale.

The town’s population has

grown to 42,000 from 38,

as former residents return for

the bonanza.

Manicurists, bricklayers and

other lower-paid workers are

almost impossible to find in

Brumadinho. Many say they

see no reason to work while

they are getting what amounts

to a monthly wage, said Vânia

Alves Estevão, secretary of

planning for Brumadinho’s

municipal government.

“Many people have no no-

tion of how to manage their fi-

nances,” she said. “Kids are

going to school with the latest

model cellphone, expensive

sneakers.”

Over the past two decades,

China’s appetite for ore en-

riched Brumadinho through

mining royalties, largely from

Vale. The town’s public

schools and health services

were among the best in Brazil.

Tourists discovered the re-

gion, which is scattered with

colonial-era churches and nes-

tled in verdant countryside.

An open-air museum nearby,

Inhotim, features such Ameri-

can artists as Matthew Barney

and Chris Burden as well as

Brazilian conceptual artists,

including Cildo Meireles.

Bernardo Paz, a local min-

ing magnate, opened his pri-

vate art collection in 2006 to

create Inhotim. The museum

helped build tourism into a

stable revenue source.

Then at 12:28 p.m. on Fri-

day Jan. 25, the dam col-

lapsed, unleashing the equiva-

lent of 4,700 Olympic

swimming pools of mud trav-

eling as fast as 50 miles an

hour. A wave obliterated mine

offices and the canteen where

workers were having lunch.

Mrs. Eleuterio’s husband

was among the dead. A mar-

ble-sized cyst has since ap-

peared on her eyelid. Doctors

suspect it was from bacteria in

decomposing corpses tempo-

rarily kept on the soccer field

next to her house.

Experts said the spill car-

ried harmful levels of iron,

manganese and other metals

into the Paraopeba River. The

government recommended

that farmers, fishermen and

indigenous communities as far

as 155 miles away stop using

river water.

Vale said it has delivered

100 million gallons of clean

water through September for

drinking and irrigation.

The family of Adriana

Nunes, 29, which ran a farm-

ing cooperative near the foot

of the mine, was left with lit-

tle but Vale’s $4,000 payment

and the $250 a month pay-

ment that ends in 2019.

The mud destroyed much of

Ms. Nunes’s 18-hectare farm,

including equipment she had

recently bought on credit. A

contaminated stream runs

through the property, which

makes farming impossible.

Downtown Brumadinho and

the Inhotim art museum were

spared, but visitors were

scared away. With $3.6 million

from Vale, the local tourism

association launched a nation-

wide TV campaign in May

called Embrace Brumadinho.

“Only now, people are be-

ginning to understand that the

whole of Brumadinho is not

covered in mud,” said Karla

Linhares, 34, who runs a local

guesthouse.

“When you’re on holiday

you don’t want to come across

bad stuff, things that remind

you of the collapse, I don’t

want to expose my family to

that,” said Telmo Dietrich, on

a day trip to Inhotim with his

wife and 11-year-old daughter.

“If my mother-in-law had

her way,” he said, “we

wouldn’t even have come.”

Brumadinho

Sao Pãulo Rio de Janeiro

Mariana

Belo Horizonte

BBBrumadBBruBruB madinmadinhoainhnh

SaoaoaoPãPãPPãuuloulo Riode Janeiro

MarMaMarrianiaa

BelBeeloHoHHoorizonteo

BRAZIL

MINAS GERAIS

BOLIVIA

PERU

COLOMBIA

VEN.

CHILE PAR.

ARGENTINA

Brasilia

500 miles

500 km

Pacific Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

Small Town

Plans Big

Chicken

FROM PAGE ONE

Tourist attraction

Tractors and trucks removed mud as workers continued to search for bodies of those killed in the January dam disaster; below, gravedigger Atenagos Moreira de Jesus.

MAÍRA ERLICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)

tors, he says.
“It’s something different,” he
muses from a chair on his porch
near the construction site.
“Fitzgerald needs rejuvenating.
It’s drying up on the stem.”
But the big bird, a grand
homage to wild chickens that
roam here, has many residents
of this rural Georgia city cluck-
ing. “Nobody’s coming to
Fitzgerald to see a giant
chicken,” says Mr. Dunn’s neigh-
bor Justin Phillips, 26. “It’s stu-
pid. Waste of money.”
Mayor Puckett, 52, discov-
ered unused special tax funds
after taking office in 2018 and
learned the city could use the

Continued from Page One

money to promote tourism. “I

was thinking about it,” he says,

“and thought, ‘Why don’t we

just build a big-ass chicken?’ ”

The dust-up ruffling feathers

is the latest squabble in a de-

cadeslong debate over what to

do about the birds that overrun

streets and yards here. Many

residents see the colorful birds

as a draw for tourists. Others

want to fry the renegade fowl

that crow at street lamps, stop

traffic, and peck in gardens.

In the 1960s, the state

brought jungle fowl from South

Asia to a forest near Fitzgerald

in hopes of promoting game

hunting, according to Jeri Lynn

Gilleland, who heads the

Fitzgerald office of the Univer-

sity of Georgia’s Cooperative Ex-

tension. The birds disappeared

and at first were presumed

killed off. Somehow, a few made

it to Fitzgerald—some say eggs

were smuggled into town, oth-

ers say the birds just flew here.

With fewer predators and

plenty to eat in town, they

thrived. Today hundreds of the

birds’ descendants, which have

interbred with local chickens,

run around the town. Most have

colorful feathers, but some now

are white. They can be tough

with other animals and have

been known to chase small

dogs. They are skittish around

humans. Four squawking birds

flew the length of a city block to

escape a reporter when he ap-

proached recently.

Locals insist the chickens are

no good to eat. Kristie Johns, 47,

pursed her lips remembering

when she tried to eat one that

her son shot. “It’s tough and

gummy,” she says. “It’s not your

regular farm chicken.”

There are fewer chickens

than there used to be, partly be-

cause some people smash eggs

in the spring to keep the popu-

lation down, residents say. Oth-

ers run the chickens down with

their cars, they say, even though

injuring a bird is a city misde-

meanor. “If we want a big turn-

out at a council meeting we just

put chickens on the agenda,”

says Cam Jordan, 63, the city’s

deputy administrator.

Mayor Puckett’s initial plan

was to build a chicken slightly

taller than a 56-foot-tall non-to-

piary structure known locally as

“The Big Chicken” at a KFC res-

taurant in suburban Atlanta.

Then he learned the tallest topi-

ary structure in the world, a

Mickey Mouse in Dubai, is a lit-

tle over 59 feet tall, according to

Guinness World Records’ official

website. “When I heard that I

said, ‘Screw it, let’s go to 62

feet,’ ” he says.

Officials at Guinness World

Records, Dubai Miracle Garden

where the Mickey Mouse is lo-

cated and the United Arab Emir-

ates embassy in Washington

didn’t respond to requests for

comment.

Much of Mr. Puckett’s drive

for his colossal chicken stems

from his belief that God gave

him a second chance and life is

too short to think small. In 2010,

he accidentally ignited a gas can,

burning himself severely. He al-

most died. While in a coma, Mr.

Puckett had a vision that he was

in hell and prayed fiercely to live

again, he says. When he recov-

ered, he decided to live boldly.

“You may not like everything

Idoasmayor,butyoudamn

sure aren’t going to be able to

say I didn’t do anything,” says

Mr. Puckett, who owns a diner

in town.

The town tried for years to

promote its chickens, with lim-

ited success. The Wild Chicken

Corner gas station has a large

bird statue on Main Street.

Metal statues of chickens of var-

ious sizes stand in front of

stores and homes. Fitzgerald

holds an annual Wild Chicken

Festival, in March, which in-

cludes a crowing contest. Mayor

Puckett hopes the giant chicken

will be the draw his city needs.

Most of the bird will be fin-

ished by Fitzgerald’s next

chicken festival, says designer

Joe Kyte, 60, a Tennessee-based

topiary maker who goes by the

business name Topiary Joe. For

clients around the world, he has

built sculptures of greenery re-

sembling all kinds of things,

from dinosaurs and Bigfoot to

elephants and whales. Once the

main structure is completed,

workers must add steel mesh, a

drip-irrigation system and the

apartment. Then they will attach

at least 5,000 plants, he says.

Mr. Kyte says he has never

built anything this big. He has

two 13-foot-tall chicken legs in

his garage waiting to be trucked

to Fitzgerald. Asked how he ad-

justed designs for the project,

he says, “I just winged it.”

with grief, many residents
aren’t thinking of what lies
ahead. Instead, some live each
day like it is their last, skip-
ping work and splurging on
luxuries.
“I think I’m making up for
the loss of him by buying stuff
for Isabella,” Mrs. Eleuterio
said. “Life has no meaning
anymore.” She teared up as
she recalled her trip to the
morgue and seeing her hus-
band’s face, swollen with the
mud that filled his mouth and
throat as he tried to take in
his last breath.
Marcelo Klein, Vale’s recov-
ery and development director,
a position created to help after
the disaster, said Vale can’t re-
sume mine operations “out of
respect for the victims.” Res-
cue workers found only body
parts of some victims, leaving
the Vale site a mass grave.
Town officials and Brazilian
prosecutors say that Vale, the
world’s largest iron-ore miner,
is not only responsible for the
dam’s collapse—the deadliest
of its kind in half a century—
but also the economic down-
turn to come.
“We’re heading for chaos,”
said Brumadinho Mayor Avi-
mar de Melo Barcelos. Like
many of the town’s residents,
he lost friends and takes
sleeping pills and antidepres-
sants for his grief.
Over the years, company
operations contributed nearly
$1 million a month to the mu-
nicipal budget, the mayor said:
“If it stops I’m going to have
to close health clinics, hospi-
tals, cut so many services.”
Vale has agreed to pay the
town about $20 million by De-
cember 2020 to compensate
for the revenue loss. The com-
pany said it also would pay
the salaries of workers from
the closed mine operation for
three years.
“We’re not making prom-
ises for the long term, but we
are committed to re-evaluat-
ing the situation with the nec-
essary frequency,” said Mr.
Klein of any future payments.
Unlike the town, Vale won’t
take a big financial hit by clos-
ing the operation. Its Córrego
do Feijão mine, acquired in
2001, accounted for 2% of the
company’s total iron-ore pro-
duction at the time of the Jan.
25 disaster. Vale can make up
the loss by stepping up output
elsewhere, analysts said.
Mr. Barcelos, the mayor,
said the town was preparing
to file a lawsuit in Germany
against the dam’s German
safety inspector, TÜV SÜD. A
police investigation found the
company shouldered responsi-
bility by covering up struc-
tural dangers at the dam in
last year’s safety audits.
The lawsuit could seek the
company’s funding for as long
as 20 years, the mayor said,
giving the town ample time to
develop another industry.
Mr. Klein said Vale was
studying ways to help Bru-
madinho compensate for the
loss. Repair work and the con-
struction of a memorial will
help, he said, but “the gravity
of what happened in January
sealed the region’s fate.”
Atenagos Moreira de Jesus,
a gravedigger at one of the
town’s cemeteries, agreed it
would be disrespectful to re-
open the mine. He said Vale
must bankroll the town until
an alternative can be found.

Continued from Page One

Vale Closes

Mine After

Disaster

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