Relações de poder acerca da propriedade no processo de construção da Usina Hidrelétrica de Machadinho/RS (1980-2010)

Abstract

The Machadinho Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), located in the northern of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), bordering the state of Santa Catarina (SC), between the municipalities of Maximiliano de Almeida / RS and Piratuba / SC, is considered a milestone, as far as the civil and mechanical engineering regarding public and economic policies. It refers, in the collective imagination, to the idea of modernization and progress, generating jobs and producing clean energy. However, parallel to this thought of modernization and progress, the riverine people had to leave their properties for their installation and, as a consequence, generated a range of socioenvironmental and cultural impacts composed of irreversible phenomena. In this sense, this thesis aims to analyze the power relations about the inappropriate properties for the construction of the Hydroelectric Power Plant in Machadinho / RS, which occurred from 1980 to 2010. Based on this historical context, it is proposed to problematize concepts like property, expropriation, modernization and social function to the formulation of the concept of social and environmental function. For, as a historical and recurring problem, there is the dichotomy of our legal system, when dealing with expropriations for public utility, such as the expropriations for the construction of Machadinho HPP, ignoring the principle of the social function of property, expropriating those of public interest without verifying the specifics of these properties and their owners. In addition to this, the declaration of public utility of the property to be expropriated, made by the discretionary power of the administrative agent, is not open to challenge in the judiciary. For this analysis the sources of research used are the concession process for the construction of the Machadinho HPP, the declaration of public utility of the properties necessary for the construction of the HPP and the civil expropriation lawsuits filed by the Rio Grande do Sul State Court and in the Federal Court of Rio Grande do Sul Subsection of Passo Fundo, the information obtained is treated through the assumptions of the qualitative research, which indicate that the lack of consideration of entrepreneurs with social function and balance permeates environmental impact of the properties of individuals impacted by the construction of the Machadinho HPP, due to the intense power relations that the concessionaires have, both politically and economically, in the construction process of the project.