The past repeats itself: threats to the environment of Baixada Santista and the dismantling of environmental policy – Maurici de Morais

By Deputy Maurici

The planet is asking for help and this is no secret to anyone. Man has degraded nature in extreme and irreparable ways, which jeopardize the future of the next generations. Here in the State of São Paulo, one of the areas that suffer most from our action is the coast, especially the Baixada Santista. Its delicate and rich ecosystems, such as the sea, the Atlantic Forest, the mangrove and the air itself, are being severely impacted, causing not only the decline of several species, but also putting human life and health at risk.

With that in mind, we created in the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo (Alesp) the Parliamentary Front in Defense of the Environment of Baixada Santista: a group of 22 deputies committed to the cause of socio-environmental health. I, Maurici, am the creator and coordinator of this front, designed to promote public policies that promote a type of human development without environmental degradation, and that favors the recovery of what has already been destroyed.

Together with civil society and my colleagues, I have been listening carefully to social movements, environmentalists and the population of the region, so that we can build the best paths for truly sustainable development, harmoniously combining the economic, environmental and social spheres.

Decades of toxicity and pollution

One of the most emblematic cases of this scenario, Cubatão already carried the title of “Death Valley”, being appointed by the United Nations (UN) as the most polluted city in the world, in the 1980s.

At the time, the rampant installation of very polluting industries, such as oil, pesticides and organochlorine solvents, fertilizers and metallurgy, was carried out without any environmental control. The air, sea, soil and groundwater ended up being heavily contaminated, causing high levels of health and mortality in the population, in addition to serious accidents. Today, this ghost that seemed to have been overcome once again haunts Baixada Santista.

We have not learned from history and the future is already frightening: poorly designed and extremely dangerous undertakings, such as an underwater pit, a waste incineration plant and ship bombs, threaten the safety and life of human beings and the region’s rich biodiversity. . They also go against sustainable development practices and international efforts to stop the degradation of the planet and global warming.

The Cubatão pit is, basically, a dump of toxic sediments from the Port of Santos, deposited without any treatment in a huge crater that was excavated at the bottom of the sea, bigger than the Maracanã stadium. Instead of properly treating and disposing of their waste, the companies involved preferred to sweep it under the rug – in this case, from the sea. A retrograde practice, banned in several countries.

These excavations bring to light the long history of the Death Valley era, as a timeline of pollution, in the form of chemical layers sedimented by decades and decades of industrial activity. In addition to what is old, studies show that the seabed continues to receive high levels of contaminants. These are heavy metals and other pollutants that can cause cancer, genetic mutations and cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological and gastrointestinal diseases, and even anencephalic fetuses.

At Alesp, I was a member of the Underwater Caves CPI, to investigate the case – but whose president turned a blind eye and was content with the companies’ version. Along with other colleagues, I was forced to write an alternative report, showing the truth of the facts and all the danger involved in maintaining this absurd dump.

With the creation of the Frente Parlamentar da Baixada Santista, we insist that it be deactivated and its waste treated and placed in a suitable landfill. And, above all, that no new pits are made in the region – there are at least two others already being studied, which may be licensed by the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo (Cetesb), opening the way to transform the estuary into a large toxic Swiss cheese.

It is worth noting that building an underwater pit is much cheaper (about a fifth of the price) than treating contaminated sediment properly. So, it seems to us legitimate to question whether economic reasons of the powerful companies involved were not what determined this choice. The responsible for the work is the logistics operator VLI – whose main shareholders are the Brazilian mining company Vale (the comparison with Brumadinho is inevitable), the Canadian fund Brookfield and the Japanese company Mitsui.

We also want them to pay the fines due and for Cetesb to adhere to the principles of its function – that is, to protect the environment.

Bomb ships, garbage incinerator and more threats

In Santos, despite the warning of dozens of environmentalists and specialists, an “Energy Recovery Unit (URE)” will be implemented in the Sítio das Neves sanitary landfill. Basically, it’s a garbage incinerator in disguise. By itself, an outdated technology, with the aggravating factor that it will be less than 1.2 km from Cava da Pedreira – designed to be a huge reservoir of drinking water, which will inevitably be contaminated by toxic residues – solid, liquid and gaseous – from the combustion process.

Another worrying project is the installation of so-called “pump ships” in the Port of Santos, close to the coast: floating bases for the storage and vaporization of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Yet another enterprise that had its licensing process carried out at the touch of a button, without considering all the risks, with Cetesb’s complacency. According to experts, a ship of this type has a power equivalent to 55 Hiroshima bombs, that is, 825 kilotons of TNT. An accident of this magnitude would devastate not only Porto, but the entire city of Santos and even neighboring municipalities, killing thousands of people and altering the entire local ecosystem. The underwater pit itself could be breached in this process.

Globally speaking, these projects go against the Paris agreement, in which Brazil committed itself in the world effort to limit the increase in the average temperature of the planet. Our country should reach 2025 with emissions 37% below those recorded in 2005.

But, contrary to the world, Brazil increased its emissions in the middle of the pandemic. Deforestation, especially in the Amazon and the Pantanal, was primarily responsible for the 9.5% rise in greenhouse gases in 2020, according to the Climate Observatory. Worldwide, they plummeted almost 7% in the year the planet stopped due to covid-19. Compared to 2010, when the target of the National Policy on Climate Change (PNMC) was defined, Brazilian emissions increased by 23%.

In a scenario of dismantling of environmental policy, loosening of supervision and lack of control over crimes such as land grabbing, mining and illegal logging in the Bolsonaro government, Brazil only gets poorer, deforests and pollutes more.

We need to stop backtracking.

This article does not represent the opinion of Brasil 247 and is the responsibility of the columnist.

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