The Olympics Aren't Enough for Rio's Guanabara Bay

One of the main selling points of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics was the so-called legacy of the games. The events meant the government would have to move forward with investments made in transportation, roads, airports, and other infrastructure, benefitting host cities.

In the case of the Olympics, one of the big legacy elements was the clean-up of the Guanabara Bay. Projects and promises to clean the long-suffering waterway have fallen through for decades. The Olympics was the chance for Rio to finally get definitive action on the bay.

As part of the Olympics budget, the state planned to invest nearly $1 billion (R$2 billion) in clean-up efforts. But last April, the Rio state government slashed the clean-up budget by 95 percent. And the state of the Bay--filled with trash and raw sewage--remains woeful.

So as the Olympics draw closer, what's going on with the bay?

• This week, the Rio state environmental secretary admitted that the goal to cut 80 percent of pollution in the bay by 2016 would not happen. He added that an investment of $3.8 billion is needed for the clean-up. Experts estimate that it will require uninterrupted work over 20 years to fully clean up the bay.
• In December, scientists identified a "superbacteria" in the Carioca River, as well as on Flamengo Beach and Botafogo Beach. The bacteria is associated with hospital waste, can cause a variety of health problems, and cannot be treated with antiobiotics.
• The same month, Swiss sailors training in Rio for the Olympics reported falling ill after having contact with water in the bay, including fever and diarrhea.
• This month, the state environmental secretariat testing found that sand on some of the city's most popular beaches, including parts of Copacabana, Barra, and Arpoador, are not recommended for human contact due to contamination from dog urine and food waste.

So if the Olympics aren't enough to pressure authorities to make the clean-up a priority, what will?

Images: Agencia Brasil Flickr Creative Commons; Gloverbr2008, Flickr.

Comments

[PTRio]

"So if the Olympics aren't enough to pressure authorities to make the clean-up a priority, what will?"

The answer is, sadly, nothing will. Cariocas like to complain about such things as Guanabara Bay pollution and such, while their dog wets on the beach or defecates on a sidewalk. In other words, it is someone else's problem. Unfortunately, the elected politicians cannot prioritize environmental concerns as they are too consumed with just keeping the City functioning using duct tape and staples, while corruption, mismanagement and incompetence act as guiding principles. I recall the French subsidized sewage treatment plants on Guanabara Bay, and the now famous quote years after they were completed, "the shit never showed up". How is it even possible to have built several sewage treatment plants without ever building the infrastructure to deliver the sewage to those plants?

The Brasilian philosophy that "all problems solve themselves, and the ones which don't we will deal with later" is not one which leads to a healthy, well functioning society. Take the current water crisis as an example. It was well know more than a year ago there was a potentially serious water shortage looming, yet not until the water is practically all gone and a humanitarian crisis is looming does government step in with ideas on how to deal with it.

Sadly, the Olympic sailing competition needs to be moved for the health of the athletes and supporting teams. That involves a lot more than simply choosing a new location, the courses must be measured and certified. And more. This could easily mean no sailing competition at all for the 2016 Olympics, an asterisk in the historic records to forever remind Rio that most problems do not solve themselves.

But, hey! Carnaval is almost here and that means there will be no problems! And, no meeting to present plans to avoid a severe water crisis until the end of February. (That being the meeting to discuss plans for using water from the Paraiba do Sul.)