Guanabara Bay water still overrun by sewage as Rio Olympics loom

RIO DE JANEIRO – Luiz Goldfeld was excited in 2009 when he heard the Olympics were coming to Rio de Janeiro and the sailing events would take place on Guanabara Bay.

Goldfeld, now 48, loves sports, especially sailing, and was eager to watch some of the events from his houseboat at a picturesque marina on the bay.

With the Brazilian economy booming and opportunities seeming endless, he thought the arrival of the Games would spark a long-needed push to clean up a bay that is as unpleasant to the nose as it is picturesque to the eye.

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“It smelled like (expletive) because it was full of (expletive),” Goldfeld told USA TODAY Sports. “I thought this was a chance to do something for the legacy. I don’t believe most of what we hear from the politicians, but I expected something would be done with the Olympics coming.”

Seven years later and with the start of the Olympics less than two weeks away, Goldfeld has discovered that, just as (expletive) happened then, (expletive) happens now. Tons of raw sewage are pumped into the bay each day. A giant pipe running from downtown churns human waste into the marina at certain times each day. Rats roam around in the waste. The stench makes uninitiated visitors feel like vomiting or fainting.

Goldfeld has seen a lot here. Dead animals, the growth of ominous-looking bacteria, plus all that (expletive), all the time.

He used to see fish constantly jumping out of the water and tried to spot turtles. Now there are far fewer fish and there is far less life.

“What an opportunity,” Goldfeld said. “There was a chance to make this place wonderful again, but they have wasted it. There was too much corruption and no political will to get it done.”

Before the Games were awarded, there were pledges from organizers that 80% of sewage would be treated before being dumped into the bay, where sailing and open-water swimming events will be staged. Even the Games’ own spin doctors long ago admitted that has no chance of happening.

Official figures are unreliable because there are no cohesive data on how bad the water was back then, but according to Goldfeld things are worse now.

The Olympic heads have done nothing, having been easily fooled during the process.

“When the IOC was here, they put (special) bacteria in the water to treat it, and it looked (beautiful), like Caribbean water,” Goldfeld said. “This is what the inspectors saw.”

That, however, was a purely cosmetic move. Within a couple of weeks, the bay was back to normal.

Rio’s organizers will do the same thing for the Olympics, a short-term water treatment policy that will allow television networks to show glorious blue panoramic shots.

But at water level, where the locals live and the athletes will compete, one reality remains. The bays, lagoons and marinas of Rio, just like those who insisted they would get cleaned up, are still full of (expletive).