BRAZIL: TOXIC WASTE SPILL A DISASTER FOR RIVERS.
| Cargo | Fishing villages and water supply devestated |
Brazilian environmental officials are battling the spread of toxins from a reservoir at a pulp and paper factory in southeastern Minas Gerais state in what environmental groups said could become the country's worst industrial accident. Ecologists said the ecosystem could take 15 years to recover, without even considering the as-yet-unknown health effects.
The spill from the Brazilian company Industrias Cataguazes de Papel could damage 300 beaches in Rio de Janeiro and Espiritu Santo. It has left long stretches of two rivers contaminated and void of life. Monetary and other damages from the spill have not yet been calculated. Potable water was cut off to 600,000 people in the eastcentral region of Minas Gerais state and the northern section of Rio de Janeiro state, and fishing and farm irrigation were prohibited.
The most obvious evidence of the disaster was the blackened water, which had a repulsive odor and was covered with foam and dead fish. Biologists and environmental technicians say that decontaminating the rivers could take 10 to 15 years, since the toxic substances have impregnated the riverbed and decompose very slowly.
The problem began March 29 when a sedimentation tank used to store chemical waste ruptured at the Cataguazes pulp and paper company in the town of Cataguazes in Minas Gerais state. More than 3 billion liters of toxic waste--including sulphur, active chloride, and sodium sulphate--emptied into the Paraiba do Sul river, one of the country's major waterways, and spread into the Pomba river before the leak was shut off two days later.
The Rio de Janeiro state government ordered eight artesian wells drilled and sent trucks to supply drinking water to seven cities and towns affected by the spill. The waste was moving toward the Atlantic Ocean at a rate of about 30 meters a minute, state officials said. By April 2 it had reached Campos, a coastal city of 300,000 about 65 km from the sea.
The health of three million people is threatened, says the environmental group Movimento Grito das Aguas.
On April 7, officials said they feared that heavy rains could prompt another spill. "There is another reservoir at the same plant that represents spillage risks, and experts are flying over the area to assess ways to prevent further damage," said an official with Rio de Janeiro environmental body Fundacao Estadual de Engenharia do Meio Ambiente (Feema).
The second reservoir contains about 700 million liters of toxic waste from the pulp...
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