Brazil will not make good on its commitment to clean up Rio de Janeiro’s sewage-filled Guanabara Bay by the 2016 Olympic Games, state environmental officials acknowledged in a letter obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
In the May 7 letter addressed to Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo, Rio’s state environment secretary, Carlos Francisco Portinho, asks for more funding for depollution efforts but acknowledges that at current investment rates, it will take more than a decade to significantly reduce the levels of pollution in the bay, where the Olympic sailing events are to be held.
In Brazil’s 2009 Olympic bid, officials promised that the city’s waterways would be cleaned up, “setting a new standard of water quality preservation for the next generations.”
Title thanks to The Standells.
