When studying the conditions of the auction for the sanitation service in Rio de Janeiro, Alexandre Bianchini, president of the Águas do Rio concessionaire, made eight boat trips through Guanabara Bay.
The water mirror is not an area of direct investment by the company, which won the bid to operate in its entire surroundings. But it will be one of the main beneficiaries of the works to expand the collection and treatment of sewage that is currently being dumped in the bay.
“If we don’t reach the objective of recovering Guanabara Bay, nothing we are doing will make sense”, he says.
Bianchini says that fulfilling the promise of depollution made almost 40 years ago is a market asset for Aegea, controller of Águas do Rio.
“We were looking for a project that could project Aegea at an international level. Show work that would be recognized”, he says.
The confidence that it will be implemented is such that he promises Botafogo beach, at the foot of the Sugar Loaf Mountain, which can be bathed in five years, a deadline for the installation of a belt around the Guanabara Bay to block pollution.
It was unsuitable for bathing on 99.8% of the days between 2015 and 2019, according to a report by the Guanabara Bay Basin Committee.
Why believe that now the bay will be clean? They are different models. what existed [em outros projetos] it was a non-refundable money that would be applied without supervision, goals and nothing. Now it’s a new phase. We now have goals to meet. We will be supervised and, if we do not meet the targets, we may be punished, expelled from the contract.
Now there is an obligation to be done. It is not an ideological issue. It’s a must do.
The contract does not mention environmental goals for Guanabara Bay. Does the dealership have its own goals? If we don’t reach the goal of recovering Guanabara Bay, nothing we’re doing will make sense. It will be ripping money. How to talk to the population that entered the city of Rio de Janeiro, after so many promises, and fall into the same trap?
It’s not just up to us, but the spotlight is ours. The issue of sanitary sewage is the biggest vector of pollution in the bay.
But we are not going to sit idly by waiting to see municipality A or B move in relation to garbage, irregular occupation. Let’s report. The objective is the recovery of Guanabara Bay.
There’s a debate about the belt [entorno da baía] and the postponement of the expansion of the sewage system in eight municipalities [Belford Roxo, Duque de Caxias, Itaboraí, Mesquita, Nilópolis, Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro e São Gonçalo]. What does this postponement mean? This is not a Brazilian model. It worked in Europe. For a long time they invested in the separator [absoluto, modelo que liga as casas ao sistema exclusivo para esgoto]. Then they came to the conclusion that it didn’t. They adopted the double model [que combina o separador absoluto e o sistema tempo seco].
the dry weather [tipo de coletor que bloqueia a poluição escoada pela rede de drenagem de chuva, mais indicado para períodos sem chuvas fortes, daí o nome, porque pode causar vazamentos nessas épocas] safe when you have a clandestine call or other problem. Rivers were cleansed in Europe with this dual system.
Without a doubt, the fastest effect is the dry weather collector. And it makes the population think: “Man, this business is working. What is my role in making this work even better?”. People connect with the problem and seek to participate in the solution.
Will the works on the usual sewage system wait five years to start? No. After five years, there are seven left to reach 90% of sewage collected and treated in all of Rio de Janeiro. There won’t be time to do it in seven. The plan is to solve the problem of large collectors over five years, but at the same time make interconnections.
There are also investments in treatment plants. They treat much less sewage than the installed capacity.
Some experts say that the dry weather collector does not prevent the population from having contact with sewage in areas without sanitation, such as ditches. How do you see this criticism? Dry weather collection improves the condition of the environment faster. A project with dry weather collection throughout Guanabara Bay in five years and 90% of the sewage collected and treated in 12, in a city with more than 450 years of problems, is extremely aggressive and challenging. There has never been in the world such an aggressive process as this.
Guanabara Bay broke the queue for residents [quando a concessão decidiu acelerar o fim do despejo de dejetos, mas adiou a ampliação de rede de coleta em oito cidades]? No, the project foresees an investment in the first five years of R$ 7.5 billion in the concession area as a whole. For the bay, it is R$ 2.7 billion. There are almost R$ 5 billion to solve other problems. Lack of water in Baixada [Fluminense], São Gonçalo and the North Zone is very large.
The contract does not include favelas in the 90% target, but provides for an investment of R$1.2 million in communities in Rio de Janeiro. How many people will this serve? We will have to set up with the city hall which places will be urbanized.
And the favelas in other cities? The cities of Baixada Fluminense face other problems beyond the communities. The centers of Nova Iguaçu and Duque de Caxias lack water. But the whole area is within the goal.
In what state did the utility find the system? We found a system that surprises on the one hand. The works that were done in the 1960s and that are enough to supply water for the next 50 years. There was a lot of thought back there on a huge growth of Rio de Janeiro and the work was done with this in mind and should make the city proud.
At the same time, there are issues of completely deteriorated equipment, which needs to be repaired. Recovering the potential of the existing structure already in place, without putting a nail in, and putting it to work 100%, the population will already clearly feel the change.
The result will be visible. You won’t even need to analyze the water in Guanabara Bay to see if it has improved.
How are you planning to carry out works in places with drug trafficking and militia activities? The problem of violence is not unique to Rio de Janeiro. We work in the North, Northeast, Midwest and South. In all these regions there is a problem of violence. Rio de Janeiro is more latent because of the city’s projection.
And how is it resolved? We’re not hurting anyone. We are not entering into a confrontation of violence.
How long will it take to say that Guanabara Bay is unpolluted? We have the first five-year goal, but it doesn’t come with a touch of a magic wand. It’s something that evolves. Restoring the existing structure is going to have an impact. Build dry weather collectors. Start treating more sewage. This will evolve over time in a condition that will be very clear for the population to improve.
Which beach that no one enters today will we be able to enter five years from now? I would reverse that sentence. which beach [da baía] won’t you come in five years from now?
Will they all be bathable? Botafogo beach? There for sure. The biggest difficulty is the area closest to Ilha do Governador.
And when will we be able to close the Ramos swimming pool because the beach is back? The project ends in 12 years. In 12 years we have to be with the goal accomplished. As long as the whole society is involved. It’s no use not polluting more with sewage, but having a floating sofa.
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