Tietê cleaning becomes a focus after the end of Novo Rio Pinheiros – 07/16/2023 – Environment

Looking at the gray, dense and smelly waters that cut through the city of São Paulo, it can be hard to believe that billions of reais have already been spent in more than three decades of projects to clean up the Tietê.

At the end of March, the administration of the new governor, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), announced that R$ 5.6 billion would be invested until 2026 to try to clean the river. More than three months later, the project still has no defined goals and uses the case of its most famous tributary as an example to be followed.

Completed last December, the Novo Rio Pinheiros project is considered a success by the state government.

“The balance is extremely positive. We are using the lessons learned from Novo Rio Pinheiros to increase and equalize Integra Tietê”, says Samanta Souza, Undersecretary for Water Resources and Basic Sanitation at Semil (Secretary for Environment, Infrastructure and Logistics). “The sanitation works were concluded successfully and the maintenance works are ongoing.”

The river that runs through the financial heart of the capital is, in fact, less dirty than before the project, launched by then governor João Doria in 2019. In January of that year, of the 8 points monitored by Cetesb (Companhia Ambiental do Estado of São Paulo), only 1 did not have the water quality evaluated as bad. In January 2023, only one of these points was considered very bad, three had a bad index and four, fair.

The improvement came mainly from sanitation actions in the region. According to Sabesp, more than 650,000 properties were connected to the sewage system, preventing more than 3,000 liters of waste from being dumped per second in Pinheiros.

Even so, the water is still gray, many spots have a bad smell (although lighter than before) and it is possible to see garbage floating along the river.

A survey by the NGO SOS Mata Atlântica, released in March, pointed out that Pinheiros is the most polluted among 120 bodies of water in the biome. Among 160 locations monitored by volunteers, water quality was considered fair in 75% of cases, poor in 16.2% and terrible in 1.9% —the three locations that fit into the worst category are in Pinheiros.

“Depollution is an action that never ends”, says Souza. “Now, in terms of sanitation, what we have to do is the maintenance of new homes and buildings, as the city grows. As for the waste, this is an ongoing job. ‘water, in which we remove the garbage. This is inside the Integra Tietê.”

The state government’s intention to replicate the results of Pinheiros in Tietê needs to overcome a scale challenge.

While the Pinheiros is 25 km long, the Tietê runs for 1,100 km, cutting across the state of São Paulo —from Salesópolis to Itapura, where it flows into the Paraná River. Along the way, it finds contaminants such as pesticides and fertilizers, but the biggest problem is the lack of sanitation in the Greater São Paulo region.

Since the clean-up attempts began, the Tietê pollution patch has decreased considerably: it went from more than 500 km in length, in the 1990s, to the current 122 km. Despite this, in the last year it grew 43%. Monitoring is carried out by SOS Mata Atlântica.

The undersecretary explains that Integra Tietê will try to solve the river’s problems based on five pillars: flood control; health and quality of life; logistical efficiency; tourism, leisure and integration; and governance.

“We have a large four-year project in which we are approaching Tietê throughout its course”, he says.

Among the measures are the expansion of the sanitation network, changes in the monitoring of water quality and recovery of fauna and flora. Under the umbrella of Integra Tietê, there is also the plan to privatize the DAEE (Department of Water and Electric Energy), which should be renamed Agência SP Águas.

The focus of investments should be on actions such as increasing sewage treatment capacity and expanding networks and trunk collectors. The area of ​​basic sanitation should receive R$ 3.9 billion of the R$ 5.6 billion in resources foreseen until 2026.

Another important part of the resources, R$ 916 million, must go to desilting. By mid-2025, these actions should start to be carried out through public-private partnerships (PPPs).

The rest of the amount should be directed towards initiatives to restore the Tietê source region, deepening the channel in the Nova Avanhandava navigation channel and managing polders (areas with dikes).

Despite this, the goals of Integra Tietê have not yet been disclosed, both in relation to water quality and the total infrastructure that must be installed with the project. “We are in the process of drawing up goals”, says the secretary, adding that they should be announced shortly.

“Planning is being carried out now, exactly in the same way as what we did in Pinheiros: surveying all needs, setting goals, organizing hiring so that we can carry out the remaining works”, says Marco Antonio Barros, engineering superintendent at Sabesp .

Despite the new name, in practice, Integra Tietê is yet another phase of the Tietê Project, which began in 1992.

“We have works in progress in practically the entire metropolitan region of São Paulo: Guarulhos, Itaquaquecetuba, Suzano, São Bernardo do Campo, Santo André”, says Barros, explaining that the objective is to complete the sewage system in the region.

According to him, the new works should begin with the area covered by the Tietê waterfront, the north, central and east zones of the capital and the ABC region.

Even though sanitation is a key element for depolluting the Tietê, Gustavo Veronesi, coordinator of the Observando os Rios program, by SOS Mata Atlântica, emphasizes the importance of these measures being combined with the preservation of watershed areas, which was not announced in new investments.

“We can’t push the population further and further away from the cities, into our forests”, he says, defending measures that facilitate the occupation of central areas of cities, which already have water and sewage facilities.