The river is dead

by Michel Montandon (Brazil)

Making a local connection Brazil

The route that I repeatedly passed dozens times in the early 2000s consisted of leaving the city of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state - which is the largest iron ore extractor and exporter in Brazil - and driving for about 40 miles until we reached the rapids on the Paraopeba River. We used to park the cars in a small train station on the outskirts of the city Brumadinho, on the banks of the river. It was there that hundreds of wagons were supplied daily with our subsoil and transported to some other place in the world. After we unloaded the equipment from the cars, we carried the kayaks and oars for about 500 yards over the train line. The river snaked down our right. Then we would go down a steep slope of about sixty-five feet and reached a small bay of fine white sand in front of a large backwater. The first time I came across the waters of Paraopeba, I thought aloud: - What a beautiful place and what a rotten river of shit! The strong sun reflected in the water and a bad smell filled the air. Our canoeing circuit was relatively short, two miles of rapids. In the dry season, it was great for beginners and new maneuvers. In the flood an unrecognizable river, the water surface had become a hedgehog. Huge waves were swirling all around, sinkholes and swirls appeared. If we lost a kayak or rowing, we would only recover them hundreds of yards down the river. We were aware of the poor water quality of the Paraopeba River, but the proximity to the capital and the quality of the rapids made us mitigate the risks of navigating on partially polluted waters. And there we were not alone, the river attracted a lot of life! As we kept going there, we always found fishermen of all kinds and ages and their secret lures. On long holidays, it was common to find whole families camped in the white sand beach. Soda and snacks for the children, barbecue and cold beer for the adults. Fathers and mothers took turns on the reels while the children played in the shallow, sheltered waters. The colorful kayaks and life jackets were another attraction for the kids to comment at school around the holiday season. What diminished the pollution generated by sewage, mining, agriculture, industries, dredgers, slaughterhouses and factory-farms is the oxygenation that Paraopeba provides to its waters. Its spring is at an altitude of 3,280 feet, already in Brumadinho, where we used to practice canoeing, the river drops to an altitude of 2,362 feet, that is, in 62 miles there is an unevenness of almost 1000 feet. These characteristics provide plenty of oxygenation and refraction of the sun and many white waters, term that gives name to the sport. The etymological origin of the name para-y-peba, in Tupi-Guarani, indigenous language of the native peoples of South America, means: wide river of shallow waters. Now I am here, a few days after the end of a world, with my dirty boots on an blocked road, exactly where we used to pass with my eyes bulging and my heart shaking, and I see part of the 12 million cubic meters of toxic mud that went down after the mine broke directly into the fatigued waters of the Paraopeba River. On January 25th, 2019 the ore tailings dam busted generating a sea of mud that killed everything it found ahead. Under this mud, 254 people lie, countless lives of Brazilian fauna and flora lie, a river also lies. How many rivers will die in front of our eyes in a lifetime before we completely change our relationship with natural resources? It is known that the history of scarcity or abundance in human communities is directly linked to the relationship with water. Commercial exploitation cannot override the fundamental right of access to clean water sources. Where there is scarcity there is decline. The Paraopeba River is dead. This death is a real crime against humanity. It was no accident. Justice be done so that the current reality does not persist in for future generations.