The multinational TKCSA was fined $1m. The company runs the CSA steel plant in Rio de Janeiro. It was reported a few days ago for the crime of out-of-control air pollution.

The CSA (Atlantic Steel Company) is emitting heavy metal particles in to the air in the region of Santa Cruz, a peripheral slum west of Rio de Janeiro.

The State Environmental Institute audited the company. The investigation verified that the equipment is still in testing phase and presenting operational problems, which is causing the pollution.

The coordinator of the police organisation Alternatives for Cono Sur (PACS), Sandra Quintela, explained that the fine demonstrates “once again, the irresponsibility of the company with the Brazilian law.”

The Economist reported there are several reports of children who are getting closer to chemical residues emitted by the company, suffering skin wounds.

Quintela mourned the event and called it the beginning of what she considers a tragedy for the people of Santa Cruz.

The coordinator of PACS explained that they are trying “to prevent the company from doubling production and other industries locating to that town.”

In addition, Quintela said there is a strong “law of silence” in the region in relation to the practices of the CSA.

Several people suffered acts of repression for being part of a paramilitary militia. That is why many are afraid to make complaints.

Story courtesy of Agencia Pulsar, a news agency run by AMARC-ALC network of community radios

Internationally, ‘Environment Day’ is celebrated on the 5th June every year. Interestingly, this is the day that the Argentine government chooses to announce the five most pressing issues threatening the environment in Argentina.

Climate change, deforestation, water, waste and conservation of protected areas are all severe issues threatening the country at this moment. Surprisingly, there have been many public initiatives and campaigns asking the government to address these problems but there has been little interest from the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires. Strategies were proposed but never adopted or implemented and there is still no concrete law protecting Argentina’s rapidly decreasing forests.

Despite the persistent problems with places such as the Riachuelo, no governmental action has been taken to stop the dumping of rubbish into the already heavily polluted river. Recycling initiatives started by local scientists and environmentalists are available, but rarely used. (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here)

“There have been some advances, but Argentina still doesn’t have an environmentally aware government,” stated Osvaldo Canziani, a meteorologist and former president of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change. The 2007 Nobel Prize for Peace winner says “We already know that climate change is having a negative impact, but in Argentina we still lack adequate systems to monitor the changes in rainfall and other indicators.”

Canziani claims that the government has ignored these issues and brushed off warnings of abnormal weather conditions. He warns that the country has not taken the necessary precautions to minimise the negative effects of climate change which could help avoid future deaths and other consequences.

The deforestation problem has been a constant gripe for the government. Environmentalists and ordinary citizens have protested and petitioned for a firm law. In spite of this, only 20% of Argentina’s original forests remain and money set aside to protect the area “disappeared”, according to Carlos Villalonga of Greenpeace, Argentina. (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here)

Another pressing problem is “the lack of access to drinkable water, the depreciation of the glaciers and the contamination of aqueducts, rivers and lakes”, according to Pablo Canziani, director of the programme for Atmospheric Studies at the Catholic University, Argentina. “The government should develop a better way of managing water for the future”. (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here)

Finally – the problems with waste disposal. Cecilia Allen of the Global Anti Incineration Alliance says “There is already a problem with regards to the overflowing landfill sites and yet the rubbish keeps on coming. There are so many ways to change the way we collect rubbish, in reality you can recycle 80% of waste.” (Read the Argentina Independent’ article here).

With the elections being held this month, such a pressing problem should be high on the manifestos for the hopeful candidates. Yet environmentalists are not happy at the lack of importance given to environmental problems, climate change and global warming.

Image courtesy of Alexandre Orion

From the series ‘Metabiótica’

“Graffiti is a crime,” Brazilian street artist Alexandre Orion reminds me, as we chat during Puma’s International Urban Art Festival in Buenos Aires. Obvious that may be, but its controversial status seems easy to forget in a world where top graffiti artists’ discarded pizza boxes are sold to fans on eBay, and where even square professionals like newspaper editors and publicists are doing stencils on the crumbly barrio walls.

The slick festival itself where Orion’s work was shown in May seems to reinforce the message that graffiti is mainstream and acceptable, big business even. But at the core of his work is a thoughtful challenge to the status quo, and a direct engagement with the city, which transports my imagination outside of the shiny exhibition centre where we sit.

“I live on the street, the street is my life,” he says. “I try to create a connection between the place, the technique, the meaning and the aesthetics in what I do.”

Metabiótica

His best-known work, ‘Metabiótica’, is a series made for members of the public to interact with, unbeknown to them. Orion painted forms and figures on the walls of Sao Paulo and patiently waited, sometimes for months, for people to intermingle with them in interesting ways, before capturing the moments in black and white photographs.

The results are stunning – and at times dark and sublime: wings sprout from a woman’s back as she waits for the bus; a young boy is stalked by a shadowy figure with a bottle; a man appears as though about to be shot by one of Orion’s graphic protagonists.

“People feel that the photos are not real,” Orion tells me. “’How did he do it?’ I hear people asking me all the time. ‘It looks like Photoshop.’ Because it takes up to two and a half months to take the photos, it seems like Photoshop. That’s the idea, that it seems like a trick.”

Image courtesy of Alexandre Orion

From the series ‘Metabiótica’

Despite the set-up nature of the photos, Orion considers the most important ingredient in the work to be the unpredictable element of real life. “I have an almost sick control over the set-up of the work, but when I take the camera I lose that control completely and I just wait for whatever. Anything can happen after that and it always happens in a better way than I imagine.”

“A photo is a partial view of reality,” says Orion, whose intentions with this series included questioning the very nature of photography. “Barthes put in check the notion of reality in photography. It’s about choice and edition. It’s not real. In this series, what happens is reality, but it’s a partial vision of everything. It’s an illusion.”

Ossario

Metabiótica has received much acclaim, taking graffiti into the realm of the art gallery, the exhibition centre and the bookshop, as a beautifully produced black-and-white volume. Yet in contrast to that project’s printed permanence, another less known urban intervention, ‘Ossario’, was washed away within hours of its creation.

This piece consisted of hundreds of skulls created by rubbing soot off the walls of the Max Feffer traffic tunnel in Sao Paulo. It took 17 nights for Orion to create a work of 400 metres – including 3,500 skulls – making a gigantic intervention in the inhospitable environment.

Image courtesy of Alexandre Orion

From the series ‘Metabiótica’

‘Ossario’ was a reaction to the shocking amount of pollution he found in the underpass. “When they built this tunnel four years ago the original colour of the walls was yellow, and I saw that in four months it became black. I was curious. I thought it was something to do with the material the tunnel was made of. I couldn’t imagine that it was the pollution. When I realised it was, I came up with the idea of using it as my material,” he says.

The technique Orion used was ‘cleaning’: scraping off layers of grime to create his message. “In this place, you had cameras all over the tunnel so I would never use real paint on the walls, but cleaning is not a crime. So I was joking, saying I’m doing reverse graffiti, so there’s no crime involved. And it’s provocative, because they should clean and they don’t, so I do.”

The municipal authorities tried repeatedly, each night, to stop Orion from making the work, but they couldn’t legally interfere, “Cleaning is not a crime. What is a crime is the environmental damage caused by unashamed pollution,” he says.

The authorities then decided to clean the tunnel, but only washed off the part that Orion had been working on. Unfazed, he continued to create skulls, and soon found others imitating his technique in tunnels all around the city. In response, the authorities not only began to clean the tunnel every two months, but they also cleaned every other tunnel in the city.

“But they will all be dirty again in less than four months,” says Orion. “It would be better to stop polluting instead of cleaning up.”

Image courtesy of Alexandre Orion

Photo documenting ‘Ossario’

On his website, the piece’s introductory page includes a quote from André Gorz’s book ‘The Social Ideology of the Motorcar’ that reads: “These splintered cities are sprung out along empty streets lined with identical developments; and their urban landscape (a desert) says: These streets are made for driving as quickly as possible from work to home and vice versa. You go through here, you don’t live here.”

‘Ossario’ articulates this urban alienation by using its forgotten, overlooked and wilfully ignored materials. Now, he wants to use those very materials to paint with, expanding the work into a bigger project called ‘Art Less Pollution’. “I’m using it as a pigment. In a way it’s an old technique – it’s charcoal, a traditional pigment – but it is really toxic and came from the car exhaust.”

Roots

Orion’s innovative approach to graffiti has come a long way since he began painting on the streets. He is part of the generation of street artists that was influenced by hip-hop culture, creating colourful freehand graffiti. This group forms a contrast to the first wave of graffiti artists in Sao Paulo, which emerged from punk culture and was characterised more by its use of stencils.

Graffiti is an international movement, and artists have always held differing philosophies about their work. “Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal,” Banksy, a British graffiti artist and one of the world’s most famous, once said. “A city where everybody could draw wherever they liked, where the street was awash with a million colours and little phrases… A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business.”

Image courtesy of Alexandre Orion

Photo documenting ‘Ossario’

Orion’s view, despite his consciousness-provoking work, is slightly less idealistic. “People used to say that graffiti is a democratic art – but I don’t think so – the artist decides to do something and it’s very imposing.”

“Is graffiti political?” I ask him. “Yes, always! When you decide to do something in a public space, it’s a political act. No matter what you do, it’s political. So you have to respect that. I have to provoke people to think about something. If they hate it, I have to think about why. It’s a kind of respect. I impose, but I care about people’s opinion.”

For more information on Alexandre Orion, visit: www.alexandreorion.com.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

 

Toxic chemical residue and methane gas bubbles are a thing of momentary concern to most tourists who pass the end of the 64km Matanza-Riachuelo river, on their way to the vibrant buildings that make up Caminito, in La Boca.

Oscar Soo, a 35-year-old tourist from Malaysia, copped to this sort of momentary curiosity. “It’s not that comfortable to experience the smell, but after you walk through the streets you forget about it,” Mr Soo said. “The colourful buildings take your mind off of it.”

In 2007, the Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based environmental NGO, declared the Matanza-Riachuelo one of the most polluted places in the world. Along with the Ganges in India and Chernobyl in the Ukraine, the river was added to the institute’s list of polluted areas awaiting attention, called the ‘Dirty Thirty’.

For the 3.5m people who inhabit the 2,240km² river basin, worry over the chemically infused river is part of daily life.

For ten years, Ricardo Hoyas and his wife and five children have lived at the end of a long cement hallway that opens up to a back patio facing the river. The dirt patio is barely three square metres and includes a rusting oven, two bicycles, a shopping cart, scraps of plywood and two covered toilets. The toilets are built like outhouses with a long white pipe travelling about five metres to channel waste into the river.

The family’s bedroom is separated from the patio only by a thin bed sheet serving as a door. Though a handmade wood fence encloses most of the patio, the shopping cart serves as an extension of the fence, closing off the patio completely. Without the shopping cart a gaping hole would lead straight down to the river, which sits less than two metres from the family’s backyard, where his children play.

Mr Hoyas built his one-bedroom home by hand after paying $150 for scrap wood. His cloudy right eye attests to his partial vision and a long rugged scar on his right arm prevents a full range of motion and employment. Mr Hoyas watches his family while his wife Ines, 39, earns $20-30 a day as a house cleaner.

The Hoyas have experienced health problems. Mr Hoyas said the smell of the water constricts his throat and has given him respiratory trouble. Abigail, age three, has a skin irritation that has never been diagnosed or treated.

“Living by the river of course is bad for your health, your skin, your throat, everything,” Mr Hoyas said.

That’s probably because the Riachuelo, which separates southern Buenos Aires city from the greater province, has been treated as a dumping ground by 65 neighbouring factories and local residents for years.

A dirty history

For almost 200 years, the government has struggled to clean the river. As a former port of entry for foreign commerce, 25% of the country’s gross domestic product still relies on the area, which means an average of 82,000 cubic meters of untreated industrial waste enters the river daily, according to a report from the executive committee for the environmental management plan and administration of the Matanza-Riachuelo basin.

Photo by Piers Calvert

 

Large petroleum terminals spill an estimated 8.3 tonnes of oil per day into the water and 29 large factories have illegal dumpsites located on or near the basin’s tributaries, according to the report.

A rainbow of minerals – lead, mercury, zinc, cadmium, copper, magnesium, nickel – along with unprocessed solid urban waste and pesticides, are illegally dumped into the river.

“Part of the reason the water is such a dark colour is because factories dump the skin and the blood from animal carcasses into the water,” said Rubén Forace, an official at the ministry of tourism. Herein lies the explanation behind the river’s name: Matanza-Riachuelo literally translates to “slaughter-brook”. “If someone has a dead dog, they throw the body into the river.”

Much of the contamination is due to a lack of education, Mr Forace said. “People use the river as a dumping ground for the same reasons they ignore rubbish bins in Buenos Aires – keeping the environment clean is not a priority.”

“There are garbage collectors and there have been for a long time, but people are lazy,” Mr Forace said. “If they forget to put their garbage out they think, ‘Okay I’ll throw it in the river.’”

Government wades in

The Argentine environmental ministry has been pledging since 1811 to solve the problem. Three years ago environmental minister Maria Julia Alsogaray vowed: “In a thousand days we are going to be able to drink the water and I am going to be the first to drink it.” But by the time the thousand days were up, nothing happened with the river or Ms Alsogaray’s promise.

“She told everyone she would drink the water,” Mr Forace recalled. “She never did.”

In 2006 Argentina’s Supreme Court ordered the government to remedy the situation and create a proposal no more then 30 days from the ruling. The court also required 44 polluting factories to present environmental impact assessments on effluents discharged into the river.

Things have since improved. In January of this year, Romina Picolotti, environmental minister, closed down two factories for illegal dumping activity. Natural By-Products and Galvafer were closed down indefinitely; the former for dumping animal guts into the river. The Natural By-Products plant was cited as not meeting the “minimum requirements of hygiene, cleaning and security”, set by the ministry.

Since the Supreme Court ruling two years ago, a total of 72 factories have been closed by the undersecretary’s office from the Riachuelo authority.

Just two weeks ago, on 5th May, Ms Picolotti renewed her vow to clean the river. “There is an aspect of extreme importance that has much to do with the health of the effected population,” she said in a press release. “We have the obligation to take care of this.”

Photo by Kate Stanworth

A house in Barracas next to the Riachuelo.

Millions set aside, but not used, for clean-up

Millions of dollars have been allocated to fix the situation. Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) loaned US$250m to Argentina with the country matching that amount for a total of US$500m in 2004. The loan was accompanied by a 45-page summary by the executive committee for the environmental management plan and administration of the Matanza-Riachuelo basin.

The report was commissioned by the IADB in 1997 to address the environmental and health issues caused by 2,000 industries such as tanneries, meat processing, petrochemicals, and textiles that pollute the river. The plan addressed industrial pollution control, flood control, solid waste management, and urban rehabilitation. One of the most ambitious goals – to construct and manage a hazardous industrial waste facility in the basin – remains unfinished.

Only US$90m is left of the IADB’s US$250m set aside during 1993 to clean up the contaminated river. And only one million has actually been used to clean the river. The rest has been put to use elsewhere: US$6m was lost in fines for not using the money; US$7m was spent in foreign consulting imposed by the IADB; and US$150m was diverted for social initiatives after the 2001 financial crisis, according to Alfredo Alberti, president of the Neighbourhood Association of La Boca.

In 2006, Mr Alberti was quoted in Página 12 newspaper as saying that the situation is “a true genocide on which people live in the margins. There are 500,000 effected people: 30% lack potable water and 55% do not have sewers”.

“The water, which people remove for drinking, is clear but is contaminated,” Mr Alberti said. “Also the food that they obtain from their orchards is contaminated, and the air that they breathe is contaminated by the toxicity that bubbles from the river,” he said. “The villas on the edges of Buenos Aires are not urbanised, and do not have sewers either. Because of the bad quality of the water people become ill with diarrhoea and since the ambulances have difficulty entering, many end up dying.”

Nicolás Baron, a resident of barrio Dock Sud, close to the river, attested to the effects of the contamination. “The people in my neighbourhood suffer from allergies,” the 27-year-old said. “Many people don’t get enough oxygen. They can’t breathe and have respiratory problems. The majority of the people living by the water have lots of problems resulting from the land, air and water – everything.”

Damages abound

Despite widespread pollution, the executive committee’s report states: “There are no epidemiological studies that could be used to make health projections.” Mr Picotti, the environmental minister, also said no disease-related study has connected the polluted environment to residents’ current health problems.

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Josefa Gomez in the backyard of her house.

But like resident Ricardo Hoyas, Josefa Gomez, 44, tells a different story. Ms Gomez has four children and has lived in Barracas next to the river since 1990. “I have too many problems related to the river,” she said. “I can’t sleep at night because of the smell and my health has gotten worse since I moved here.” Ms Gomez moved to the villa when her husband got a job working for Frigorífico, a meat exporter. She runs a kiosco out of her home.

As a former resident of the Microcentro, Ms Gomez said she had few problems, but when she moved to the villa to be with her husband, everything changed.

“My health got worse. It’s difficult to breathe and we can’t drink the water even.” In the last eight months her asthma and bronchitis have intensified.

Of her four children, Orozen, 16, has had the most problems, she said. Last year she was in the hospital for three days for respiratory problems and difficulty breathing. She suffers from a skin condition that has gone undiagnosed since the family cannot afford to pay for treatment.

When asked about her mental well-being, the mother of four said she worried more about her children and their exposure to the harsh environment.

“I have lived in other places so I know not all the world is like this,” Ms Gomez said. “For most of my children, this is all they know.”

Aside from the health problems, there is the shock of knowing what floats along the river. Ms Gomez said that earlier this month, on 8th May, she looked over her back patio, which borders the river, and saw a dead body floating close to the shoreline. The body was floating facedown in the river for a few hours before police officials came to remove it.

Ms Gomez claims this has happened before. Just two months ago another body of a man was seen floating underneath the newly constructed bridge running from the north to the south side of Barracas.

“It’s been two times in two months, but nothing surprises me,” Ms Gomez said. “It’s my family that I worry about; they may end up working and living here. I just hope their lives will be better.”

Photo by Kate Stanworth

Ines Salvatierra, Ricardo Hoyas and their three year old daughter Abigail.

The stories of the Gomez and Hoyas families contrast greatly with doctors at La Boca’s Argerich Hospital, who agreed that health issues cannot be directly traced to the dirty river.

“It’s not just a matter of the Riachuelo,” said Nigelia Vicenta, a dermatologist. “It’s about the sun and the climate that affect patients. Everyone has a relationship with the place where they live but it’s never been scientifically proven that certain health effects are related to the river. You also have to take genetics into account.”

Silvia Jakimczuk, an allergist, admitted that poor environmental conditions increase allergic symptoms but may not be the sole cause. “It’s possible that peoples’ systems would improve if they didn’t live near the water,” Ms Jakimczuk said. “If someone has asthma or allergies, obviously their situation will get worse if they live close to the river. They can’t adapt so there’s a manifestation of their problems.”

Despite such problems, the government is hesitant to make formal statements about future clean-up projects. Mr Picolotti told Reuters: “The Riachuelo has not only swallowed boats, it has swallowed programmes and government officials. People are tired of empty promises.” The environmental minister said that it would be “scientific insanity” to give a timeline for the eventual clean-up.

Photo by Lindsey Hoshaw

Allergist Sylvia Jakimczuk.

However, members of the Neighbourhood Association of La Boca believed the situation would improve. Neighbourhood member Olga Acosta-Pino, 56, said renovation would eventually occur as land near the river is bought for real estate development. “It will get better, but not because people or the government are worried about the residents,” she said.

Like Puerto Madero or San Telmo, La Boca may receive a facelift powered in part by foreign investment. As demand grows for loft apartments and upscale restaurants, the interest that started in Puerto Madero may drift south toward La Boca.

Neighbourhood member Sergio Morales, 36, was quick to point out that new construction won’t necessarily mean a cleaner river. “It’s possible that new buildings will pop up and that the river will get cleaned, though this is a different thing,” Mr Morales said. “People who live in a thirty-foot high rise will not worry about the dirty river. And Puerto Madero has a beautiful neighbourhood but the water is just as dirty as the Riachuelo. We’ll see, the buildings yes – the river, who knows.”