2009

The Gonzalez´s family,

Ramiro Mazzeo ramiro@adfilmconsulting.com www.adfilmconsulting.com ar.linkedin.com/pub/ramiro-mazzeo/0/5ba/312/

Working Group On Climate Change Conference & Expo 09,13th-17th November 2009 at Mayfair Hotel, London.

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Author: Prof. Ramiro H. Mazzeo Case Study: “The Gonzalez ´s family”, WATER AND POLLUTION in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Introduction The Gonzalez1´s family case study tries to assess their activities in relation with climate change, soil, water and air pollution altogether in relation with family activities in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This paper is not the product of long research or extensive studies, is the product of acute observation, common sense and most of the data compiled in this case study is available to public in general. The case study is assessing how the daily living activities of a medium class Latin American family of 5,“the Gonzalez “ with Jorge and Maria as the head of the family with two college students and a high school girl, living in the suburb of Buenos Aires, 2 cars, lawn and a swimming pool, impacts in the environment and climate change and global warming. Through the study we understand how the family and relatives work around with the issues of global warming and climate change As we read it we could also find some recommendations to reduce waste and make a better use of resources Millions in the planet are represented by the micro world of “The Gonzalez “. The study crossroads various perspectives of the daily life of this family and some relatives in relation with transportation, food and beverages, clothing, waste disposal, education, leisure and vacations. Buenos Aires and suburbs demographics: Buenos Aires (see map below) is the main city in Argentina, located in South America. Total population of Argentina was 36.260.130 million2 , total population of Buenos Aires district 2.776.1383, total population of 24 Buenos Aires suburbs 8.684.4374 . So we could find a total population between the city 1 Gonzalez fictitious surname

2 2001 National Census INDEC

3 2001 National Census INDEC

4 2001 National Census INDEC

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and suburbs of 11.460.575 million as at December 31 2000, estimates place Buenos Aires population and suburbs by June 2009 in 12.922.000 million.

WATER POLLUTION Gonzalez family lives in the northern suburb of Buenos Aires, Jorge washes the car once a week or two weeks. Cuts the lawn with the mechanic lawnmower once a week in spring and summer, and twice a month on autumn and winter. He also maintains the water of the swimming pool clean through all seasons, so he doesn´t have to spend a lot of time, money and effort cleaning the pool when summer arrives, saving like 45.000 liters of drinking water once a year. They have a meter from the water supply company AYSA, now state owned, and spends on average, based on the last year consumption, monthly basis 36.5 cubic meters of clean crystal drinking water, paying a monthly bill of U$S 10.75 at an exchange rate of 3,85 pesos per dollar. The relatives of Jorge Gonzalez who happens to live in Ezeiza a suburb of Buenos Aires only 45 minutes away, is not so lucky. Ezeiza district jointly with Ituzaingó, Malvinas Argentinas and Jose C. Paz - Buenos Aires suburbs- holds 804.250 inhabitants. 86.6 % of the population don´t have access to drinking water served by Water Supply Company; this means 691.655 inhabitants has to get water through wells. Drilling for water from 20 to 30 meters has its consequences also, because the population also lacks of sewage pipes so they have to build

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cesspools. The result is pollution of the soil, and ground water so when drinking, people get sick because of Escherichia Coli and nitrates content.

3.5 million People in Buenos Aires and suburbs lack of water serviced by water supply companies and most of them sewage system5. According to the pdf document found in AYSA web6 “Plan de saneamiento de AySA 2006-2020 7“1.5 MM of people are without water in Buenos Aires and suburbs, this figure is sensible lower than the one published in the article of La Nación 2.150.448 million, in the same document AySA alto mentions sewage deficit for same area of 3.5 million people without sewage pipes and plants treating fluids.

So the problems mentioned are mainly high contents of nitrates in some areas served, low pressure, due to low capacity of transportation and distribution, and the third point mentioned is the raw sewage thrown into the Rio de La Plata the main source of water for Buenos Aires. The water of the Rio de la Plata (main river bathing Atlantic Sea) comes mainly from the hydrologic system Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and

5 La Nacion newspaper oct 25 2009

6 http://www.aysa.com.ar/index.php?pagina=archivos&id_seccion=19 Public water supply

company

7 AySA Recovery Plan 2006-2020

Cesspool

Water well

Drainage of

waste into the ground water

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Uruguay. We could see in the picture8 below Uruguay River and Paraná River turning water into Rio De La Plata River.

Altogether with AySA the other water company supplier ABSA Aguas Bonaerenses S.A. serves 62 districts of Buenos Aires province covering 150.000 km2 now working with 600.000 households. Potential clients for this company not served 1.206.8789.

Because the lack of sewage pipes the constructions of cesspools is a regular practice, therefore the soil gets contaminated with detritus. People drill for water and therefore drink the water that has been polluted with cesspools deteriorating their health.

8 Source www.educared.org.ar

9 La Nación

Buenos

Aires City

Rio de la

Plata

Atlantic

Ocean

Argentina- Buenos

Aires Province

Uruguay

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RIACHUELO´S RIVER POLLUTION Gonzalez ´s family takes a tour in the weekend to La Boca, a traditional tourist neighborhood where most of Italian immigration established when they first arrived to Buenos Aires. At the side of La Boca runs Riachuelo River. All members of the family noticed a weird smell; let´s add that the river is one of the boundaries between the City of Buenos Aires and the Province of Buenos Aires.

The Riachuelo River is polluted with industrial and households’ sewage waste, and human waste. The river runs along the boundary of the city of Buenos Aires and goes through 64 km. long from La Boca to Cañuelas, 14 districts covering an area of approximately 2.240 km2 living 5.0 Million people, many of them in slums. There are more than 100 open sky dumps in the side of the Buenos Aires province and around 10 of them in the boundaries of Buenos Aires city, more than 50 ships are abandoned or inactive and almost sank. ACUMAR10 estimates that one third of sewage liquids with no treatment come from industries.

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ACUMAR interjuridisdictional entity responsible for implementing the Comprehensive Plan for cleaning and

Sanitation of Matanza Riachuelo Basin

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Industry11 dumps waste as follows:

30%

21%

14%

11%

7%

17%

Chemical,

Pharmaceutical and oil

Meat and milk industry

Food and non alcoholic

beverages

Paper and textile industry

metallurgical industry

other

On a small creek we could observe how the water comes in directly with no treatment at all

The Riachuelo pollution goes into the Rio de la Plata river where the water supply companies have two important water intakes one is in front

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Source ACUMAR

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of the Airport of Buenos Aires city and the other in front of Bernal city 2.4 km. away from the coast.

On January 4th 1993 Secretary of Natural Resources Mrs.Maria Julia Alsogaray for the first time made a public promise to clean pollution from the Riachuelo River in 1000 days, and after more than 6000 days, or 16 years very little has been done. On November 15th 2006 congress enacted law 26168, published on December 4th 2006 creating the public authority “Autoridad de la Cuenca Matanza Riachuelo” ACUMAR as an interjurisdictional entity. The Matanza-Riachuelo River Basin Authority would exercise its jurisdiction in the area of the Matanza-Riachuelo Basin as follows: Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and the districts surrounding Buenos Aires of Lanús, Avellaneda, Lomas de Zamora, Esteban Echeverría, La Matanza, Ezeiza, Cañuelas, Admiral Brown, Moron, Merlo, Marcos Paz, Presidente Perón, San Vicente and General Las Heras, of the province of Buenos Aires. In particular, the Authority is empowered to: a) Harmonize the rules applicable in respect of sewage effluents receiving solid bodies of water and gaseous emissions; b) Plan the environmental zoning affecting the basin;

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c) Establish and collect fees for services rendered; d) Carry out any legal act or administrative procedure necessary or desirable to implement the Comprehensive Plan for Pollution Control and Environmental arrangement. e) Manage and administer a matter of Central Executing Unit for the necessary funds to implement the Comprehensive Plan for Pollution Control and Environmental arrangement. On 8 July 2008, the Supreme Court issued final judgments in the “Mendoza” case, in relation to "the specific claim about restoration and prevention of damage to the environment “, which requires the issuance of urgent decisions, final and effective. It is a collective sentence atypical declarative and executive performance, as it contains a general condemnation, which rests on the ACUMAR, the Federal Government, the Province of Buenos Aires government and the City of Buenos Aires government, "equally responsible in any way concurrent " for complying with the program established by resolution," which should serve three purposes simultaneously: 1) Improvement of the quality of life for people in the Cuenca Matanza Riachuelo, 2) The reconstruction of the environment in the basin Cuenca Matanza Riachuelo in all its components (water, air, and soil) and 3) The prevention of damage with sufficient and reasonable degree of predictability. Currently, the process of implementing the ruling of the Supreme Court decision is in charge of Federal Court of Quilmes by Dr. Luis Armella. We could see below the x ray picture12 for the basin Matanza Riachuelo, red colour areas are slums, black areas stand for open waste dumps, and grey areas are neighborhoods with chances of flooding if the river has higher water levels than normal.

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Published by Clarin on june 21 2006

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On June 10 2009 was announced by ACUMAR interjuridisdictional entity responsible for implementing the Comprehensive Plan for cleaning and Sanitation of Matanza Riachuelo Basin that the Banco Mundial, World Bank approved a loan of U$S 850 million to carry out a plan improving the environment at a total cost of U$S 1484 millions, the remaining U$S 634 millions are funded by Argentina´s Federal Government. The money will be allocated on a first stage, to infrastructure to provide

water and sewers and pollution reduction, directly benefiting 3.5 million

people who today do not have an infrastructure that would guarantee

minimum quality of life.

Main funding from World Bank will be invested as follows: 1. Infrastructure U$S 693.900.00 2. Industrial pollution reduction of U$S 60,300,000 3. Environmental zoning of U$S 65,500,000 4. Institutional Strengthening of U$S 18,200,000 5. Front-end Fee U$S 2,100,000 On October 28th 2009 a judge requested the secretary of environment and the head of ACUMAR– Autoridad de la Cuenca Matanza Riachuelo

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Mr. Homero Bibiloni head of ACUMAR and two majors from districts: Lomas de Zamora Mr. J. Rossi, and Lanus D. Diaz Perez to execute the construction of a wall sideways with the Riachuelo River. The federal court ordered D. Diaz Perez to return in 48 hours pesos $2.700.00013 of money not applied to works. If they don´t carry the works compromised will be personally fined by the court. Same fines will be applied to Homero Bibiloni and the head of Vialidad Provincial Bonaerense14 A. Jose Curto if in 30 days they don’t start cleaning the side of Riachuelo River close to the market La Salada visited for thousands every week. As I mentioned before although very little has been done in the last 16 years, it seems we are receiving some signs that the water pollution and waste pollution issue is being tackled, fortunately for millions who live in the Matanza Riachuelo basin. ……………………………………………………………………………………. WATER and WC Let´s get back to Gonzalez ´s family again, in their house they have 3 bathrooms upstairs and a small one downstairs, and an additional smaller one is close to the pool. Unfortunately the industry supplying toilets are not worried about climate change or the scarce water resources. Well we all know that in other countries wc toilets have two buttons, one disposes the half of liters than the other depending on personal needs. In Argentina and most South America the WC toilets happens to have only one button, so with two buttons toilets, the saving of water could be around 32.85015 liters per year per family of 5, multiplying this number by the number of families in Buenos Aires. Reducing water consumption with this simple reasoning, public water supply companies could save huge amounts to the taxpayers extending water pipes and provide sewage system to the population who don’t have it today.

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U$S 705.000

14 Buenos Aires province public entity for building and repairing roads.

15 Family of 5 visiting the toilet 3 times a day based on a full toilet flush of 12 liters, if they could

flush only 6 liters they could save 32.850 liters of water= 5peoplex3timesx6litersx365days.

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The question I ask, is what incentive would have the population to change wc toilets from one button to two buttons, is everyone conscious that the water is a scarce resource ?? Not to mention the public WC toilets in restaurants, bars and public buildings dripping water by hundreds thousands liters every day, and nobody told me, I saw it many times!! We could save million liters changing the WC and use a) Less chemicals to treat the water, b) Using less electricity pumping water through the pipes, c) Larger life for huge pumps and all network pipes. Strange the public water companies industry in Argentina didn´t takes notice of this situation. Other important source of spilling water in Buenos Aires city is washing the front sidewalks of buildings, with a regular hose in one hour 500 liters are used for this task. In Santa Fe province the building workers union and private foundation Convivir distribute 700 hose pipes to reduce the water flow up to 200 liters promoting a rational use of water16.

SOIL POLLUTION Maria Gonzalez goes shopping to Wal Mart. She goes once a week, supermarkets provide with plastic bags, it helps takes everything into the trunk of the car. The bags once disposed will be around much more than Maria, like 100 years approximately and are being disposed in waste dumps polluting our environment. 16

Published on http://www.abierta.tv/Rosario/Notas/Encargados-de-edificios-usaran-picos-

reductores-para-lavar-veredas.aspx

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The location of this picture in the border of the highway “Camino del Buen Ayre”, approximately 15 minutes from Maria ´s home. We could see huge amounts of plastic bags floating in a small lagoon.

Buenos Aires province passed new legislation law number 13.868 approved on September 11 2008, partially regulated by decree 2145 on September 29 2008 from the head of the Province of Buenos Aires, mandating supermarkets like Carrefour, Wal Mart or Jumbo big food chains and smaller ones industry codes 521.110, 521.120 and 521.130, that they should provide clients with biodegradable plastic bags, leaving small business more time to make the change 12 additional months. The law is in force since October 15, 2009, and the organizations responsible of enforcing the law is “Organismo Provincial para el Desarrollo sostenible” OPDS, and the CIC17 Comisión de Investigaciones Cientificas provides technical support to the OPDS. There is still a big discussion because the bags are not converted into carbon dioxide and water but instead they break into very small pieces it means they are oxodegradables, declared Elida Hermida from Conicet 18 to La Nacion. In Australia charging clients for the plastic bags, reduce the consumption 69%. In Ireland in 2002 paying for the plastic bags reduced the consumption by 92% after few weeks.

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Commision for scientific research

18 Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Técnica

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The alternative of using paper bags are better from the point of view that the paper is dissolved much faster, but on the other hand producing paper is a polluting industry also. In Buenos Aires recycling is not mandatory so waste is not separated in plastic, food and drink cans, paper, and glass. So there is a big market opportunity for the recycling industry. Population in general should be conscious of the problem caused by plastic bags and should take to the supermarket and for other shopping activities a reusable bag. …………………………………………………………………………………….. I feel industry is reacting too slowly to climate change and scarce resources, using new materials but with the same concept they had 50 years ago with unlimited resources, for oil, clean water, land, and air. At the same time there is a huge opportunity for conscious environment industry to develop a new set of friendly environment products. Although we don´t see massive campaigns in Buenos Aires talking about water, soil or air pollution, individual actions and nonprofit organizations are working on the issue, I hope in the near future higher consciousness of the problem becomes common place leaving a clean better environment to our heritage. Ramiro Mazzeo