(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Early Sunday morning, and the sun is already roasting. There is almost no movement in the water, and plenty of space on the beach. The family has decided to try something new this morning, and is in unfamiliar waters when we can borrow a paddle board with us for a five-paddle. There are almost no waves, and the sun is reflected in the water. Therefore, it is harder to see how brown it actually is. On this beach, the municipality has spent 38 million reais – about NOK 96 million – on remediation. "Black tongues" people used to call the sewer that ran out here. Now it is laid in pipes and carried further into the bay. The local press got big headlines when the municipality's bathing water test showed that the water on the Bica beach in Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro is now good enough. But the water is still brown and uninviting – perhaps the best motivation for keeping the balance on the standup boards we've rented. Grandma can't be persuaded to put her feet out of the water. The kids are less skeptical and will join as passengers. “The water has gotten better,” assures Gabriela, who, along with her husband Roberto Felipe, rents out the boards on the beach, “But we still pick garbage here on the beach every single day. There are bottles and plastic, sandals and planks, ”she admits. The kids find it quite exciting and want to bring both the plastic sword and a headless doll home. Summer Olympics in the latrine. The conditions we encounter on the beach that day also explain why the International Sailing Federation ISAF has advocated moving the Olympic sailing competitions away from the Gulf of Guanabara into the high seas. ISAF asks the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to put pressure on Rio's authorities. The environmental movement recommends sailors to take hepatitis vaccine before coming to Rio next year. "The Gulf of Guanbara is a major latrine," environmental activist and biologist Mario Moscatelli wrote in an email to me. He has followed the conditions in the bay for over 20 years, and fears that the Olympics will be an embarrassing affair for Rio. When Rio de Janeiro was awarded the Olympics in 2009, the IOC got a promise that 80 percent of the bay would be sanitized. Five years later, local authorities have realized that this is a promise they will not be able to keep. The state will now guarantee nothing but 80 percent of the state's households to be connected to public water and sewerage systems by 2018. There are 8,5 million people living in the 15 municipalities around the Gulf of Guanabara. Half of these live in homes that are not connected to the public sewer network. Calculations show that over 18 liters of household sewage flows into the bay every second. In addition, 100 tonnes of rubbish flows into the bay every single day. The arena for sailing competitions during the 2016 Olympics can thus be described as the world's most beautiful garbage dump. Ever since 1991, local authorities have been trying to clean up the Gulf of Guanabara. The state has received aid, and in its time was inspired by what Japan gained in the heavily polluted Tokyo Bay. 29. In March 1994, the Japanese Japan International Cooperation Agency granted a so-called development loan of 31 million yen – over 2 billion Norwegian kroner – to Brazil on very favorable terms. The funds were earmarked for the redevelopment of the Gulf of Guanabara. Funds also came from the Inter-American Development Bank IDB. However, in 2006, none of the objectives in the 1991 remediation plan were achieved. The Inter-American Development Bank chose that year to withhold the last payment, and in 2013, the Japanese concluded in an evaluation report that "no significant improvements in water quality have been observed in the bay". The project was therefore given the lowest possible grade in the evaluation. Japan funds, though, were used to build three new sewage treatment plants in the Baixada Fluminense region. The Pavuna plant has a cleaning capacity of 1500 liters of sewage per second, but purifies only 127 liters. This means that the plant operates at 8 percent of total capacity. The Sarapui plant also has a capacity of 1500 liters, but cleans 220 liters of sewage per second and operates at 15 percent of total capacity. Since only about half of the households are connected to the public sewer network, the treatment plants simply do not have enough sewage to treat. As long as households have to pay to connect to the public water and sewer network, many choose to take shortcuts – and lay their sewer pipes straight out into the street or in the nearest ditch. "It's absolutely horrible," said Jerson Kelman, an engineer, university professor and the man who founded the Brazilian Water Directorate in 2001. "In many of Rio's neighboring municipalities, sewers run into ditches between houses," he says.
Over 18 liters of household sewage flows into the bay every second.
Waste in the Førdefjord. In 2013, Rio de Janeiro signed a cooperation agreement with the US state of Maryland, where the ambition is to learn from American experiences from the redevelopment of the Chesapeake Bay between Maryland and Virginia. This bay was considered dead in the 1970s, and Americans are still working to improve conditions there. The collaboration has so far not yielded concrete results. By March this year at the latest, Rio signed a cooperation agreement with the Netherlands on monitoring the pollution of the bay. It is unclear what exactly lies in this collaboration. At home in Norway, we have similar experiences from the Drammensfjord. In recent weeks, the conditions in the idyllic Førdefjord have also been in the spotlight. On 17 April, the company Nordic Mining received permission from the Ministry of Local Government and Modernization, with a green light from the Ministry of Climate and Environment, to conduct mining operations in Engebøfjellet in Naustdal municipality in Sogn og Fjordane – and deposit up to six million barrels of waste a year in a landfill in Førdefjorden. Nature and Youth has announced that they, together with the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation, will appeal the case to the EFTA Court ESA for breach of the Water Framework Directive. Nature and Youth will also appeal the case to the King in Council. Lonely fight. According to Jerson Kelman, the industry is not the scapegoat in Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro. Ordinary sewage and large amounts of rubbish are the problem. "I do not worry about the athletes. I'm against the whole Olympics. What worries me is the conditions people in Baixada Fluminense live under, where the kids play in the sewer, "says Kelman. Today, local authorities say that they need another 30 billion kroner to clean up the bay, and that this is not possible to achieve in just over a year. This does not surprise anyone. Brazilians are used to being able to expect little or nothing from their elected representatives. They rarely make demands, and are known for their broad smiles and positive attitude, almost no matter what they are exposed to. "The water does not scare anyone, and here there are people who bathe every morning," also claim the snowboarders Gabriela and Roberto Felipe. In other words, environmentalist Mario Moscatelli is fighting a rather lonely battle, and he has been doing so for many years. Politicians juggle their promises in peace, and never seem to lose their balance. Rio's mayor Eduardo Paes, for example, takes the criticism very seriously and describes it as exaggerated. "We have no plan B," he says. During the celebration that there were 500 days left until the opening of the summer games in 2016, Olympic President Carlos Nuzman said that conditions in the bay, if nothing else, will be the same for everyone. Like bad. "Not suitable for swimming" showed the tests of the water on all of the beaches in Guanabara Bay on April 30. There have been no more Sunday trips to Bica beach on us. Hestmann is a correspondent in Ny Tid.
