Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Rio de Janeiro Lets Sewage Flow


Upon arriving in Rio de Janeiro for the first time, I remember Mr. Rant telling me to NOT step in puddles. He didn't care if it had just rained or if the road was flooding, avoid all water on the street at all costs. Sure, no one likes wet shoes or feet but what was the big deal?

I'll tell you what, sewage! This city is a ticking time bomb for piss and crap spills. At any given time in most neighborhoods, especially after a particularly good rain shower, you will see "liquids" coming out from under the big lids to the sewer system. Sometimes you even see a turd and some partially broken down toilet paper. Classy right?

Wrong. It is disgusting. Really, it is something that I just can't mentally process how it is ok. I mean, Rio de Janeiro police were giving out tickets to people peeing in the streets at Carnaval last year but would it count if they had found a leaky sewer system and peed into the pee? I mean, it's all the same thing right? If they give the pee-er a ticket shouldn't the pee-er be able to give the government one back for essentially doing the same thing only 300 times worse? The government should get a ticket for each person of the estimated amount of people needed for that size of leak.

This all comes up because there is a particularly annoyingly large hole and sewage leak in front of my building. The city's way of handling it is to put up two ruler sized sticks and a piece of red plastic, making a path for pedestrians to pass in front by going into the street "safely". The plastic has already fallen down but what can you expect after it being up for 3 weeks.

Of course this may be a building issue if the pipe is ours and not the city's...

And while I'm bitching, Mr. Rant has the gull to optimistically say "At least the puddle is much smaller. It is an improvement." Yes, I can thank the Gods of rain for not pouring down on us but what about the government whom we pay a ridiculous amount of taxes to? The building who we pay condominium payments? Maybe they could come by and, I don't know, stop something that we Americans would consider a bio-hazard...

Ah well, at least it explains why Mr. Rant get so grossed out by my wearing Havaianas while walking around the city. Still, this is one thing about this city that gives me that big ewwwwww feeling.  

24 comments:

  1. Mr. Rant is right.
    You see, this is why the Casperlobsters are much wiser than the Havaiana Flippers.
    I am adding another rule to my Sharia Foot Law: anyone wearing Havaianas in public (minus beach) and reading a Satre, or Camus book (specially "The Stranger") will be automatically executed.

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  2. Brazil IS an open sewer!

    Dana Blyth

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  3. Sounds like Dana is a little angsty ;)

    Well this is pretty gross. Are they going to expand the sewage system for the Olympics? Apparently that gives the city a reason to improve things.....

    Can you imagine the millions of extra craps that will be pouring out of the holes in the street when all the gringos invade?

    At least it would make a good story!

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  4. Why do you think they named it "Rio"? Almost every street has its own little river of surprises. Ah, the unique bouquet of aromas just brings tears to my eyes. Beware of the "turdles"!

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  5. Danielle, does Mr. Rant, or should we call him now Dr. Rant, have any plans of practicing in the US after his residency? There is a test foreign doctors have to take to prove their knowledge to get certified in the US. I'm not sure if it's a different test in each state or if the test is given by the Federal government. There must be a lot of Baby Boomer doctors retiring and they will need to be replaced.

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    1. Hey James, you are confusing me with Danielle :) I'm Rachel

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  6. Serious eewwwww factor but it happens so often, it doesn't even register in my mind as "wrong" anymore, just something to navigate around. It would be great if they overhauled the sewage system but will they? I can't imagine what a big project that would be. On this same note, did you check out O Globo today? There's an article in the Zona Sul section (the cover story) which talks about how polluted the ocean is this year and how you shouldn't go in the water (includes most beaches from Sao Conrado to Flamengo). I've really noticed the color of the water this summer at Leblon beach...it's been mostly brown. I know that sometimes it's due to a red-tide situation, but it appears this year the big cause is sewage. I hope this story gets international news and attention (vs BBB), maybe they'll actually DO something about it.

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    1. You go!!! Please do. There's so much more to say about this and so much to do. Heal the Bay (in Rio).

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  7. Many marvelous things have been built in Rio, but unless they are turned over to private industry they are simply not maintained. Buildings, streets, bridges, sewage systems, electrical systems, AIRPORTS, you name it. What other major city on this Planet has 268 manholes rated at 100% chance of exploding at any moment? One of those went off in front of my apartment in Ipanema a year ago, my first thought was a bomb and I expected to see half a building left. But, just an ordinary exploding manhole. (no puns intended)

    I read a few months ago that several sewage treatment plants were found abandoned in the Fluminense area, apparently the State was paying for these facilities but nobody was actually running them.

    Maintenance, as a word and a concept, is badly needed in Rio.

    PS: I finally figured out why I could not post here. In Firefox, you must allow third party cookies or you cannot post. Whatever you do, do not choose "ask me every time" with respect to cookies in Firfox, you will spend all day approving/disapproving cookies.

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    1. I have never seen anyone working at the sewer treatment plant in aterro...

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  8. "One of those went off in front of my apartment in Ipanema a year ago, my first thought was a bomb and I expected to see half a building left. But, just an ordinary exploding manhole."

    Wow, I thought exploding manholes in Rio only occured during carnival,( and scene).

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    1. Nope now it's an extreme sport/tourist attraction. Do you dare walk over a Rio manhole?! ;)

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  9. Don't even get started on the airports here, or aviation in general, I could tell you things that would make you never want to fly here again. Everything here seems to be a bit mismanaged, or undermanaged or completely lacking management.

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    1. Please share these thoughts, specially concerning aviation.

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    2. Oh GP, there's a lot to say, way too much for this one response and I really don't know where to put the lid on this subject but...just to wet your whistle, and maybe this is just for your curiousity. Do you know how many commercial airports in the country of Brasil have more than 1 (working/in use)runway? It's ridiculous, less than 5, I think I just heard it was 3 the other day. Are you kidding? Does anyone even know what that means to you if you're flying and the one runway you're supposed to land on is suddenly unavailable (which happens often and not always because of airplanes, but because of birds, dogs, cars, trash blown onto the runway, it happens everyday). It means, pray to god that you have enough fuel and good weather to get you to your alt. airport. And this happens ALL OF THE TIME on passenger flghts. Either you get diverted or you go into a holding pattern, sweating that you'll have enough fuel to land where you are supposed to land. While it's not fair to compare Brazil to the US, do you have any idea of how many airports in how many cities in the US have multiple runways? Super common folks. But not here in Brazil. Have any of you put your fingers on the pulse of aviation here these past few years? It's booming, but infrastructure is NOT, nor is the ATC system here equipped to deal with things. O Jeitinho still exists in aviation and it's scary, lots of bullshit and stupid people. And again, I could say a lot about pilots and atc and ground crews but I won't. Do you know how many "major capital" airports are lacking in basic navigation aids? Approach aids? NDB's are still used widely in this country (try doing that over a forest/jungle at night with no lights). And ILS approaches, LOC approaches, NDB approaches, Cat II, VASI, ...only sometimes there are these things available, only sometimes they work, it depends on the airport and depends on what is working. This is 2012, yet there are so many things about flying in this country that are straight out of 1950. Most of you don't even know what a NOTAM is or what it means, but if you'd listen to all of the things that aren't working at your airport, I think you might be a little concerned. And so many airports here are just not equipped, they don't even have ground staff to support 24/7 opps...it's still backwards in infrastructure, but going full forward in passenger flight opps. What has been the increase in the past 2 years 19%? Something like that. It's not comforting to know that the pilots of your flight might very well be flying in a low visibility situation, with you on board, or maybe right over your house, while the plane's autopilot system is saying "low terrain" "low terrain"...and they're just trying to land the f'ing thing, in a lot of cases the worst case airport navigation/landing situation, and also not get shit or have to write a report to central opps at thier airline for being too late or deviating from norms. It's sucks. Needs to be revamped. But I know aviation worldwide isn't a bowl full of cherries. Plus in Brazil they just upped the amount of hours commercial pilots can now fly in Brazil...it used to be 80, now it's over 100 per month. Great move!

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    3. forgot to clarify when I say "passenger/commerical flights", I mean B-737's or Airbus A320, or Embraer 190's, I'm not talking about landing a cessna 172 on a crap, tiny, alt. runway with 4 passengers, yes, you can still do that here. But a plane with more than 100 passengers...that's what I'm referring to. And that's what the market is these days. Travellers in Brasil no longer are restricted to buses, but now can fly, and that's a whole other story. The other day a guy got off of the plane and tried to walk to the luggage carts to get his mala on the tarmac (he didn't know there was a room in the terminal to retrieve his luggage)...the whole of transportation in Brasil is changing, crossing many socioeconomic lines not previously crossed.

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  10. Thanks for the info Stephanie.
    I kinda regret asking, but it's better to know, regardless of how disturbing.

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  11. GP, it goes way beyond that. Things need to change. Brazil should conform more to the standards/rules of the US or Europe/Japan...it's too lax right now, which is dangerous. It's not safe in a lot of ways. They don't even do random drug or alcohol testing on pilots which I think is a really important thing to do. I've been told Brasilian laws won't allow for this? Whatever, I think for such a job, it should be something implemented. Also, at a lot of airports, you can just drive right up to the runway, even onto the runway. I know Brasil is not the US, but even so, there are risks with this...I feel like I am seeing the end of an era each time I cross the runway at sdu. It can't stay that way much longer, so open and exposed to any appreciating enthusiast, and also to any crazy person. What's it gonna take to change things here?

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    1. "What's it gonna take to change things here?"

      What it always takes: somebodies life.

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  12. Danielle, I don't know if Brazil uses a different system but storm sewers and sanitary sewers are two different systems in the US and France. The storm sewers drain the rain water from your house roof and the streets and that water goes directly to a river without treatment. Sanitary sewer systems is for anything coming from within your house including the toilet, showers, sinks, and clothes and dish washers. This all has to be treated to remove the bacteria, slug, chemicals, etc. before the water is fit to return to a river. Unless Brazil is sending raw sewage directly to the sea or the two systems are somehow mixing through broken pipes underground, I can't understand how shit and toilet paper can appear on the streets from the storm sewers. Having said that, in the 1980's the Lagoa in Rio used to stink like a cesspool and it drained into the sea via a canal between Ipanema and Leblon. They were supposed to install a long pipe to take this drainage far out to sea. Of course, they should have cleaned it up before sending it back to nature but they didn't. I don't know what the Logoa smells like now in summer.

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    1. James, it's Rachel :)

      I don't know how the sewage treatment works here but I believe that the raw sewage runs out to treatment plants. So the sewage floods up in front of the buildings it came from before it has had the chance to be treated. Seriously, I don't think I even want to know how things work underground here. I doubt it is pretty

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  13. James, yes the raw sewage goes straight into the sea. I don't know the statistics for Rio, but in Porto Alegre, a city in the south, only 30% of household dirty water gets treated, meaning the waste of millions of people goes directly into rivers and oceans. Porto Alegre is said to be one of the most developed and organised places in Brazil. The lagoon there (the worlds largest) is so polluted it's unsafe for people to go in, fish keep dying in their thousands and it's kind of sinister to see a lagoon with no bird life. Works are taking place now to install water treatment plants, and at some point in the future the government aims to treat 80-90% of all household water. In my opinion they should be aiming for 100%, but at least it will be a vast improvement.

    In Rio some parts of the city near the beach are all connected to the sewage network, but I think in law it has been optional for construction companies to connect buildings to the sewage network, therefore not everyone is going to be that keen to spend more if they don't have to. The lagoa is being cleaned, a filtering machine has been working on it for years and it's much better now than it was. BUT, on a more long term basis I heard that no sewage treatment is being implemented, so all the hundreds and thousands of households draining into the lagoa will continue to pollute right into that freshly cleaned water. A classic case of treating the symptom and not the cause, in time for the World Cup and Olympics. I don't have the details, it's what a local person told me.

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