Pollution is nothing new to Rio de Janeiro, but environmentalists say many of the city’s waterways now represent a grave threat to public health and Rio’s tourism industry.
In January a stretch of the Barra da Tijuca beach was cordoned off after toxic algae appeared in the water, and at the end of March authorities removed a tonne of dead fish from the Guanabara bay.
Dark stains known as “black tongues” periodically appear on Rio’s beaches, and strips of white and yellow foam - the result of untreated sewage, environmentalists say - have started to show up off the upmarket beach neighbourhood of Leblon. After a large crimson stain appeared at Leblon government officials claimed the “red tide” was the product of harmless algae. Environmentalists are unconvinced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/28/brazil.pollution
RIO DE JANEIRO
When world leaders arrived in Rio for the 1992 Earth Summit, their nostrils were assailed by a particularly nasty example of the ills they were here to debate: the dense, putrid stench of Guanabara Bay.
Ten years later, after a huge internationally funded cleanup, and a week before another Earth Summit opens in Johannesburg, one thing hasn’t changed:
Guanabara Bay still stinks.
...
Each day, some 470 tons of raw sewage are dumped in the bay, along with about 10 tons of solid garbage, five tons of oil and an unknown quantity of industrial waste. In four of eight areas tested, sewage had almost entirely replaced sea water.
...
The first phase of the cleanup began in 1993. A 10-year plan called for building two new sewage-treatment plants, improving existing ones and installing more than 3 million feet of sewers. Once in place, the theory went, this system would be able to treat 55 percent of all sewage flowing into Guanabara.
Today, of the bay’s eight sewage-treatment plants, only three are fully operational. The others work intermittently, or not at all. One plant was inaugurated twice, by two different governors, but still isn’t connected to a sewerage line.
“They inauguratein·au·gu·rate
tr.v. in·au·gu·rat·ed, in·au·gu·rat·ing, in·au·gu·rates
1. To induct into office by a formal ceremony.
2.
..... Click the link for more information. sewage-treatment plants, but they don’t build the systems to bring the sewage to them,” complains State Environment Secretary Liszt Vieira.
Rio de Janeiro state’s Sanitation Secretary, Agostinho Guerreiro, admits that only about 15 percent of the sewage that spills into the bay each day is treated. But he blames past administrations.