Eletronuclear, the state-owned company that manages the Angra 1, 2 and 3 plants, was fined more than R$ 2 million by the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA).
The reason was the irregular disposal of radioactive substance in the sea of Angra dos Reis (RJ) and for not communicating the environmental accident to the authorities. The company denies that it omitted the leak and must appeal the fine.
The case happened in September last year, but Eletronuclear, the state-owned company responsible for managing the plants, only communicated the fact 21 days after the episode.
At the end of the month, the State Environmental Institute was notified of the case and warned the National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) and Ibama. A team was dispatched to the site to carry out an inspection and collect samples for analysis.
According to the CNEN inspection report, “the presence of artificial radionuclides was found at levels that did not pose any risk to the population and/or the environment”. However, the environmental agency fined the company R$101,000 for not communicating the National System of Environmental Emergencies immediately after the leak.
The state-owned company claimed that a “small volume” of the harmful material was “involuntarily released into the rainwater system” and that it was an “operational incident”, without the need to comply with the “rite of notifications that would be mandatory in the event of an accident” and that, after analyzing the episode, “no significant result” was found.
On Tuesday 21st, the Public Prosecutor Aldo de Campos Costa filed a public civil action in the Federal Court in Angra dos Reis against Eletronuclear, accused of acting with “lack of transparency and irresponsibility in the communication of the nuclear accident”.
On Wednesday the 22nd, federal judge Monica Maria Leone Cravo ordered Eletronuclear to assess all possible damage caused in Itaorna Bay and publicly disclose “objective information about the accident and the measures adopted to remedy the damage, in order to guarantee the affected population’s right to information and to prevent the manipulation of information”.