Stench of sewage and corruption taints Games
RIO DE JANEIRO — On a dazzling summer day, Rio’s iconic Sugar Loaf Mountain provides a glorious backdrop for the marina from which sailors will venture into Guanabara Bay in their quest for gold at the 2016 Olympics.
The scene is perfect. Except for one thing — it stinks.
The International Olympic Committee said this week it believes Rio is getting most things right as it prepares for the XXXI Olympiad, which Brazil is using as a way to show the world it is a growing economic power that can compete with the First World.
But the goodwill and respect Rio has been trying to generate by staging South America’s first Olympic Games could take a blow if the stench that pervades Guanabara Bay and the flotsam in it are not somehow cleared by next summer.
Although far away from internationally renowned and relatively clean oceanfront beaches, such as Copacabana and Ipanema, Guanabara Bay borders some of the city’s most densely populated slums. About 18,000 litres of sewage are produced every second by its eight million residents and it all ends up in the notoriously polluted bay.
Adding to Guanabara’s unsavoury reputation, thousands of dead fish washed up on its shores this week, about 10 kilometres from Marina da Gloria — just as the IOC’s Coordination Commission was preparing its progress report on Games’ preparations by visiting venues.
The media’s focus on Guanabara Bay at an IOC news conference obscured the sports body’s generally upbeat message: after a slow start, organizers were “on track to leave fantastic legacies to the people of Rio,” said Nawal El Moutawakel, the Olympics’ senior watchdog on the preparations.
“Huge progress had been made,” she said, predicting the Rio Olympics “are going to be fantastic. They will be organized the Brazilian way with lots of love and passion.”
However, as with every recent Games, the IOC expressed anxiety over how much work still needs to be done to get venues ready.
Potential problems included meeting a “very tight” timeline to get the cycling velodrome, the equestrian cross-country course and a golf course ready, Moutawakel said. Then there is the task of finishing the vastly improved city transport grid, which includes the subway and bus networks. And doubts remain there will be enough hotel rooms for the Olympic family and the public.
However, by far the biggest concern is the situation in Guanabara Bay. The goal of the Rio organizers had been to clean up at least 80 per cent of the raw sewage before the $16-billion Olympics begins. But Rio Governor Luiz Fernando Pezao cast serious doubt last week on whether that promise could be kept when he said “it’s not easy” to meet the goal and he would not be surprised if it was not met.
Despite Pezao’s remarks and a report by the BBC about a British sailor who said he fell ill after his boat capsized in the bay two months ago, Moutawakel said she was satisfied with assurances from local organizers that pollution reduction targets in the bay would be met.
“We have taken with confidence all the reports that have been made to us regarding all the work that has been made to ensure that athletes will compete in safe conditions,” she said, almost sidestepping the issue.
“We are confident about the plan” to clean up the bay, Joaquin Monteiro, president of the Municipal Olympic Committee, said this week, adding the bay was the state’s responsibility, not his organization’s.
As the stench from Guanabara wafted across Marina de Gloria, which will be the Olympic sailing headquarters, passersby and activists who maintain a vigil were skeptical of such claims and unanimously of the opinion the bay poses a potential health hazard to athletes and spectators.
“It smells, the colour is dark and there are sometimes dead fish in the water,” said Thiago Schuina, a geologist who is camped with several others outside the entrance to the marina. “It’s terrible.”
Looking out over the marina, a man who asked his name not be used because he holds a senior position with an international airline in Rio said, “This is Brazil.”
What he meant was there were limitations to what could be done, particularly since so many Brazilian politicians involved in the Olympics were corrupt.
As he walked on an adjacent beach, Lukas Neimann, who comes from southern Brazil, made as if to hold his nose because of the odour.
While the Olympics would be good for Brazil, he said the country had far more pressing concerns, such as health and education. They had been shunted aside because the Rio Games had become a honey pot for politicians.