Two foreign mining companies operating in Brazil, Norsk Hydro of Norway and Anglo American of South Africa and Britain, are drawing criticism-—and lawsuits—over pollution of several rivers with iron ore and bauxite, the ore used to make aluminum. Norsk Hydro came under the spotlight in February, when the Evandro Chagas Institute (IEC), an independently managed public-health unit of the Brazilian Health Ministry, reported that overflows of untreated bauxite waste had polluted the Pará River in the eastern Amazon state of Pará with heavy metals. Some 400 households in Barcarena, a city of 100,000 in Pará, were left without water service. Citing the report, Pará prosecutors secured a Feb. 28 court injunction ordering a 50% reduction in output at Hydro Alunorte, a Norsk... [Log in to read more]