São Francisco works oppose Bolsonaro and Lula, but they are a historical error

In recent days, various content published on social media talks about drought problems or pumps shutting down in channels crossing the São Francisco River. Many of them are old records and have already been denied by some journalistic media. Others are authentic and actually show channels from the transposition works with sections that are partially or completely dry.

The recent publications and content checks are another chapter in a war over the authorship of the work, which for decades has been sold as a panacea for the lack of water in regions affected by drought in the Northeast of the country. Supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) accuse the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) of trying to sabotage the completion of the work to perpetuate the drought industry. Lula’s supporters accuse Bolsonaro of trying to politically capitalize on a work that would have the PT member as its “father”.

For experts consulted by People’s Gazette, Lula and Bolsonaro are fighting over the authorship of a historic error. Transposition channels are, in their view, nothing more than a white elephant that does not come close to solving the social problem of lack of water in the Brazilian semi-arid region.

The idea of ​​moving the São Francisco River dates back to the 19th century, from the times of Brazilian Empire, and was taken up by several governments in the history of the Republic. In 1998, the government of former president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (PSDB) conceived a project to transpose the river, which began to be implemented at the end of the first Lula government, in 2007.

Since the 1990s, professor João Abner Guimarães Júnior, doctor in Hydraulic Engineering and Sanitation and retired professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande Norte (UFRN), has sought to show, together with a group of researchers in the same area, that transposition of the São Francisco River has been a mistake since its conception. Now, he considers himself vindicated by reality.

“Reality is showing what the transposition of São Francisco is. It is an unfeasible project, understand? A political project that had mainly political-electoral motivation. It has already fulfilled its purpose. It was used and abused both in Lula’s election and in Dilma’s election. Even Bolsonaro used and abused this project. Political interest – which has always been, for me, the main one – has already sucked the juice out of the transposition. What is left? It remains an unfeasible work. The transposition is an unfeasible work. The cost of maintaining the transposition is absurd. It will cost more than half a billion reais per year”, he criticizes.

The big problem in the semi-arid region, according to him, is the infrastructure for distributing water to the population. For this problem, the Brazilian political class has not even begun to propose solutions. The urban issue of how to bring water to the inhabitants of semi-arid municipalities should have been a priority and preceded plans to transpose the river, but it was never addressed.

Abner considers it predictable, therefore, that images will begin to emerge of sections of the transposition channels unused: there is no state body or company that will want to pay for the maintenance of these channels without a clear project of how they could serve the population.

“It’s a very high maintenance cost, which the states don’t want to pay. They said at the beginning that this cost would be covered by the urban sector. But the urban sector hasn’t even been consulted yet whether or not they’re willing to pay for this water. The economic unfeasibility is appearing. We said that in 2004, but there was a safety net that prevented this from becoming public. While the works were being done, they couldn’t stop”, he comments.

According to him, concrete channels, exposed to the sun of the northeastern hinterland, tend to suffer rapid deterioration. Therefore, maintenance will be expensive both in cases where water is pumped and runs through the canals – which will reduce concrete erosion, but will require high energy consumption – and in situations where the canals are dry.

For Eduardo Lima de Matos, PhD in Development and Environment from the Federal University of Sergipe (UFS) and former Secretary of the Environment of Aracaju, there is a “major design error” in the works to transpose the São Francisco.

“The priority was not social, it was not accessing people without water. Bringing water to people was, let’s say, the propaganda of the project, but not the essence”, he criticizes. “Of course, some cities that are in a dry zone, like Campina Grande, needed a transposition on time. But we are talking about two giant canals of more than 700 kilometers”, he adds.

Matos considers that the investment necessary to set up a water distribution infrastructure would be, today, more or less equivalent to that of transposition – which exceeds R$ 15 billion –, but highlights, like Abner, that there has never been a true plan for this .

The two experts disagree, however, about the real motivations for the transposition. For Matos, the project essentially served to finance agricultural production for export. “This transposition water is for irrigated fruit growing, it is for export. We are exporting water from the São Francisco at a very expensive price paid by the system”, he says.

For Abner, the objective is “the work for the sake of the work”: the real interested parties are the construction sector and political demagogues. “The priority was to do the work itself. And the bigger the work, the better. This logic prevails to this day. These are works that are of interest to the construction industry, with great coordination within the government, and that manage to bring together many politicians. That’s the logic of the drought industry.”

Bolsonaro had the chance to redirect the project, but preferred to follow the logic of the drought industry

João Abner says that, when Bolsonaro took office, he and other experts in water resources management had good expectations and came up with a proposal with guidelines for the distribution of water to semi-arid municipalities, thinking especially about helping to solve the problem of human supply .

At the beginning of the government, in 2019, the then Minister of Regional Development Gustavo Canuto seemed receptive to new ideas. But, little by little, the proposal to complete the transposition along the lines of the drought industry began to be seen as electorally important for Bolsonaro. Rogério Marinho, who replaced Canuto at the beginning of 2020, embarked on the plan to carry out the physical execution of the São Francisco transposition works and to sell this as an achievement of the Bolsonaro government.

The transposition of the São Francisco River is divided between two main axes: the East Axis, which is 217 km long and crosses the municipalities of Paraíba and Pernambuco, and the North Axis, 260 km long, crossing the municipalities of Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Rio Grande From north. More than 95% of both axes already had their physical structures ready when Bolsonaro took office, but his government completed these works, which had been going on since 2007.

In addition, the Bolsonaro government also carried out work on the 71 km Agreste Branch, which carries water from the Eixo Leste to more municipalities in Pernambuco, and began work on the 115 km Apodi branch, which carries water from the North Axis to Rio Grande do Norte. Both branches were in the original project, but had not been initiated by the PT governments.

At the end of the Bolsonaro government, and especially at election time, the acceleration of works and the completion of important sections were explored by the former president in the campaign. Throughout the PT administration, promises to complete the works were reiterated, but never fulfilled, and Bolsonaro decided to take advantage of this politically.

In 2009, as shown in a report by Folha de S.Paulo At that time, Lula promised to complete the North and East axes in 2012; in 2013, according to a report by Correio Braziliense, Dilma stated that she would complete the São Francisco transposition works in 2015; in 2015, according to the portal G1Dilma promised to complete the works in 2016.

Although he was effective in delivering, Bolsonaro maintained the projects as they were conceived during FHC’s time. For Abner, the former president missed an opportunity to redirect water management in the Northeast region and help put an end to the logic of the drought industry. And, if his objective was to electorally explore the transposition, that didn’t work either.

“In the cities where the transposition water passed, where he inaugurated the transposition, the popular defeat was great. There was no electoral result”, he states.

Although he is critical of the transposition works, Abner is not fatalistic about the problem of water supply in the semi-arid region. He sees the possibility of solving the problem by other means.

For him, it is necessary to sectorize water management in the Northeast, more than carrying out major works. Furthermore, it is necessary to induce the participation of private capital, in a kind of “liberal shock” of water supply in the semi-arid region, encouraging public-private partnerships. This must be combined, according to him, with a plan that integrates the federal, state and municipal government spheres.

“It would be a real revolution in this area. But it would have to be privatized. The drought industry is a disease of the Brazilian State. And, as long as we do not reduce the role of the Brazilian State in this water sector, we will not get rid of drought industry”, he comments.