A Diver Sifts Through São Paulo’s Polluted Rivers

The following is an excerpt from an article in:


The New York Times
Saturday, December 15, 2012

A Diver Sifts Through São Paulo’s Polluted Rivers

By SIMON ROMERO

SÃO PAULO, Brazil

THE Tietê and Pinheiros Rivers, which cut through this metropolis of 20 million, flow well enough in some parts. But in certain stretches, they ooze. Their waters are best described, perhaps, as ashen gray. Their aroma, reminiscent of rotten eggs, can induce nausea in passers-by.

José Leonídio Rosendo dos Santos has been diving into both rivers for more than 20 years. Hired largely to unclog drainage gates, he scours the murky depths of the Tietê and Pinheiros, which have symbolized São Paulo’s environmental degradation for decades, bringing to the surface a list of items that is eerie and bizarre.

Over the years, his takings (which, as a contractor for public utility companies, he is required to hand over to the authorities) have included a suitcase with $2,000 inside, handguns, knives, stoves and refrigerators, countless automobile tires, and, in another suitcase, the decomposing remains of a woman who had been dismembered.

“I stopped looking for suitcases after that,” said Mr. dos Santos, 48.

He readily admits that jumping into rivers that rank among the world’s most polluted is not for everyone. But for Mr. dos Santos, a surfer who got into diving to pay for his wave-catching habit, his job has brought him an unusual level of notoriety and admiration from Paulistanos, as the residents of this hard-bitten megacity are called.

On the traffic-clogged highways that trace the rivers’ banks, some drivers stop their cars, taking pictures with their smartphones when they see him preparing to dive. Talk-show hosts marvel at his courage. One newspaper here, describing Mr. dos Santos in his futuristic diving garb, compared him to a “Japanese superhero.”

Part of the fascination with Mr. dos Santos has to do with how Paulistanos view their rivers. As the historian Janes Jorge recounts in a book on the city’s largest river, the Tietê (pronounced tchee-uh-TEY), it was adored by city residents as recently as the middle of the last century, when they fished, swam and held rowing competitions in its waters.

Then São Paulo rapidly expanded to become one of the world’s largest cities, its residents moving into high-rise buildings, gated enclaves and sprawling slums. Factories deposited their waste in the rivers. Flourishing districts in São Paulo’s metropolitan area expanded without basic sanitation systems, discharging sewage directly into the Tietê and Pinheiros.

The rivers now persist in Brazil’s popular culture as dystopian objects of derision. Rock bands like Skank composed songs about the seemingly impossible dream of cleaning up the Tietê. Laerte Coutinho, a cartoonist, created an entire strip, “Pirates of the Tietê,” in which marauders set forth from the malodorous river on raiding expeditions across contemporary São Paulo.

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