Dredging of the Tapajós River between Santarém and Itaituba will be carried out by a company contracted via a Federal Government tender Dnit/Disclosure The project to deepen and unblock the Tapajós River Waterway, in Pará, has moved forward again and generated alert among socio-environmental organizations. The progress occurred after the State Secretariat for the Environment and Sustainability (Semas) exempted the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (Dnit) from presenting environmental licensing for the work. The measure is contested by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF), the Public Ministry of the State of Pará (MPPA) and a network of 50 civil society organizations, GT Infra. ? Follow the g1 Pará channel on WhatsApp The control bodies and entities point out the DNIT and the government of articulating a "maneuver" to circumvent a recent decision by the Federal Court of Auditors (TCU). The court had halted the original project due to a lack of environmental studies and consultation with indigenous peoples and traditional communities in the region. In a note, Dnit said that it "only carries out maintenance dredging" and that it "has been working to monitor and, if necessary, mitigate possible impacts" - (see the full position at the end of the report). Semas said, in a statement, that "there is no dredging underway on the Tapajós River". The state body further declared that "the exemption from licensing for maintenance dredging provided for in the Federal Law does not exempt federal infrastructure planning bodies from the responsibility of providing clarifications to interested people, in the case of federal plans likely to affect them directly". READ ALSO: MPF asks the Court to create a committee to manage the Tapajós River and wants to block licenses for large projects What is the Tapajós Waterway The Tapajós River Waterway is a 280-kilometer-long logistics corridor. It connects the municipalities of Itaituba and Santarém, in the west of Pará. The route was designed to transport grain crops, such as soybeans and corn, from the Brazilian Center-West through the so-called "Arco Norte". According to the Ministry of Ports and Airports (MPor), the work is part of the Growth Acceleration Program (New PAC). The project provides R$74.8 million in federal resources to guarantee commercial navigation and passenger transport throughout the year. Despite benefiting the agricultural sector, the proposal is the target of protests from indigenous communities. Indigenous people occupy a ferry against the waterway on the Tapajós River, in Santarém MPF and MPPA want to annul the exemption The Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and the Public Ministry of the State of Pará (MPPA) adopted measures to try to annul the authorization granted by Semas. What the MPF says: The MPF issued an urgent recommendation, on July 9th, for Semas to immediately revoke or suspend the exemption. To DNIT, the recommendation is not to start dredging work without the due licensing process and prior consultation; and the Navy, which makes any navigation or intervention authorization conditional on proof of these requirements. The bodies have 10 days to respond whether they will comply with the recommendation. The control body also spoke at the 2nd Federal Court of Santarém demanding the continuation of an ongoing legal action. DNIT had requested the dismissal of the process claiming that the new General Licensing Law of 2025 made the action void. The MPF contests the request and asks the Federal Court to force DNIT and Semas to carry out licensing and consultation with communities. An inquiry was also opened by the MPF to investigate administrative acts by Semas and DNIT. In the investigation, documents and detailed explanations were requested from several federal and state bodies, such as Incra, Funai, Santarém River Captaincy, Civil House of the Presidency and Ministry of Indigenous Peoples. What the MPPA says: In a note, the MPPA informed that the 13th Public Prosecutor's Office for the Environment of Santarém, under the leadership of prosecutor Lílian Braga, issued a Notice of Fact to accompany the exemption from licensing at the seven points of the Tapajós River. The MPPA also said that it sent letters within 15 days to Semas, Ibama and the Santarém Municipal Environment Secretariat demanding full copies of the technical opinions that supported the exemption, in addition to proof of impact studies and listening to the affected communities. Agreement with the private sector According to GT Infra and the MPF, the exemption from environmental licensing was structured after the TCU imposed limits on the original project. On July 1, 2026, the TCU Plenary, reported by minister Walton Alencar Rodrigues, judged irregularities in the notice budgeted at R$74.8 million. The TCU determined that DNIT "could not proceed with the bidding without first obtaining a prior license and consulting the affected communities." The Court of Auditors' decision was made under the new General Environmental Licensing Law, according to the technical note. To overcome the impediment to public bidding, DNIT activated a Technical Cooperation Agreement (ACT) signed with the Brazilian Association for the Development of Inland Navigation (ABANI), a private entity that represents large shipping companies and agribusiness multinationals. Under the new arrangement, called the Annual Waterway Maintenance Dredging Plan (PADMA) 2026, ABANI will directly assume the costs and contracting of the company that will carry out the dredging in Tapajós, under the environmental exemption granted by the state of Pará. The transport public policy analyst at GT Infra and author of the technical note, Renata Utsunomiya, said that "the exemption from licensing is worrying because it means giving up the studies necessary to understand the impacts of dredging". "We are talking about a river that is already under pressure from other activities, such as mining, and interventions that can affect biodiversity, communities' ways of life and even the dynamics of the river's environments", he detailed. Data disputes Semas' argument Semas supported the exemption in an article of Law No. 15,190/2025, which exempts "maintenance dredging", which are those intended for cleaning and unblocking without increasing the original depth or width, from licensing. However, both the MPF and GT Infra dispute this classification: Four unprecedented points: Of the seven sections planned for intervention (Pederneiras, Santarenzinho, Lago do Roque, Monte Cristo, Barranco do Navio, Itapaiúna and Amorim), the points of Pederneiras, Santarenzinho, Lago do Roque and Barranco do Navio have never been dredged before. The MPF and GT Infra argue that a first intervention is, by technical definition, a work of deepening and widening, and not maintenance. Volumes incompatible with sedimentation: The Tapajós River is a clear water river, characterized by a very low rate of natural sedimentation. Even so, in Itapaiúna, it is planned to remove 879.4 thousand cubic meters of material in 2026, an amount that exceeds the annual sedimentation of 13.4 thousand m³ estimated for the site, proving that the work aims to continuously deepen the channel. For the MPF, the "maintenance" classification cannot depend on a technical self-declaration by the DNIT based on internal standards, but must take into account the ecological risk and the magnitude of the work, which is the removal of more than 4.5 million cubic meters of sediment along 280 km of the river in three years. Risks and danger of mercury The GT Infra technical note and the MPF procedures detail the following impacts: Risk of mercury remobilization: Due to the history of mining in the Tapajós basin, volumes of mercury are deposited on the riverbed. The MPF requires scientific studies to assess the risk of dredging remobilizing the heavy metal, which would contaminate the food chain, artisanal fishing and the health of riverside communities. Threat to sacred sites: The Santarenzinho dredging point is in an area considered sacred to the Munduruku Indigenous People and which is targeted for the construction of private ports designed by the Association of Port Terminals of the Amazon Basin (Amport). Chelonian nursery: The Monte Cristo point is less than 2 km from a nesting area for Amazon turtles (a species threatened with extinction) and tracajás. The period planned for dredging coincides with the animals' breeding season, and noise pollution and beach erosion caused by machines can make the birth of offspring unviable. Unexplained technological change: The new plan replaced the old suction dredgers with Hopper-type vessels, which are significantly larger, require greater depth to navigate and cause greater physical and biological impact on the river ecosystem, without any justification or impact study having been presented. Tailor-made waterway for agribusiness The technical analysis indicates that the parameters of the designed navigation channel (4.9 meters deep and 128 meters wide) specifically meet the requirements of convoys of soybean and corn barges for export. The entities and the MPF warn that this prioritization is "alarming" given the scientific predictions of a new El Niño event of strong intensity for the end of 2026. During extreme droughts in the Amazon, agribusiness megabarge traffic competes for the reduced riverbed, making navigation impossible for smaller boats that transport fuel, food and guarantee access to healthcare for isolated riverside communities. GT Infra and the MPF argue that, in periods of severe drought, "the priority of public policies must be food security and human services, with the reduction of dredging and the regulation of traffic to prioritize local supply over the flow of commodities". What the Dnit says The federal agency said the following, in a note: "Maintenance dredging was defined in accordance with the DNIT Waterway Glossary, which establishes that this activity corresponds to the execution of engineering work aimed at cleaning, unblocking and removing material from the bottom of water bodies, with the aim of guaranteeing minimum navigability conditions at the operational draft and navigation safety by reestablishing the width and depth defined in the existing navigation channel. The DNIT informs that it only carries out maintenance dredging. Regarding the existence of environmental impact studies, technical reports or complementary assessments considered in the authorization process, DNIT informs that it carries out periodic monitoring in the areas where interventions occur. We emphasize that the Department has been working to monitor and, if necessary, mitigate possible impacts that may occur. be caused by its activities. Furthermore, DNIT acts in accordance with the requests of the environmental agencies involved. The actions planned to be carried out under the Cooperation Agreement with ABANI are being planned respecting the traditional communities and the environmental characteristics of the region." VIDEOS: see all the news from Pará Read more news from the state on g1 Pará