Environmental crisis: they throw more than 100,000 kg of garbage a day at 2,000 meters from the sea

Stella Maris Ianuzzi, 74, raises the hose with her right hand and prepares to fill a bucket. The left uses it to vent and shakes it to make the air work. She grimaces when she opens the tap: a bitter gesture, anger and discontent. Whenever Ianuzzi opens the tap, the water comes out, brown and stinking like a junk.

To find the source of the rotten smell in the water, you have to stand several meters under the tap and five kilometers to the northeast. There are the underground layers contaminated by the Pavon open-air dump: a 21-hectare site in General Lavalle, province of Buenos Aires, where they threw and buried all garbage from this municipality and the Coast Party, without pre-treatment. On average, they throw 100 tons a day and in summer, they reach 300. The liquid of garbage flees towards the ground, pollutes the waters of the neighbors and reaches then the sea situated at only 2,000 meters.

"I have lived in this place for 34 years, here in the summer you can not breathe, the smell of rot makes you want to vomit, and when the garbage burns, the rats get sick. exhaust and can even walk on the roof of my house.The truth I'm ashamed to tell you, "says Ianuzzi who, outraged, wipes his tears with a tissue." I do not deserve to live like this, no one deserves to live like this: between rats, garbage and with all the contaminated water. "

Although the Pavon dump is located in the municipality of General Lavalle, 95% of this waste comes from the Costa Party, one of the most important tourist corridors in Argentina, which receives millions of visitors each year. This is a 96-kilometer long coastal strip on 14 sites. San Bernardo del Tuyú, San Clemente del Tuyú and Mar de Ajó are among the most important cities. The mayor is Juan Pablo de Jesús, of the Frente de Todos, in post since 2007. He is the son of Juan de Jesús, mayor of Costa party four times (1983-1987, 1987-1991, 1991-1995, 2003). -2007).

Pavon is one of 86 such depots in the province of Buenos Aires. As an open dump and not in a sanitary landfill, it becomes a source of pollution that spreads silently in the air and in the water. This exceeds the 6000 inhabitants of General Lavalle, to become an environmental problem for the 100,000 inhabitants of the Costa Party and tourists who arrive en mbade every summer, who use the water network and throw themselves into the sea.

The mayor is Juan Pablo de Jesús, of the Frente de Todos, in post since 2007. He is the son of Juan de Jesús, mayor of Costa party four times (1983-1987, 1987-1991, 1991-1995, 2003). -2007)

In General Lavalle, there is a water treatment plant that provides drinking water to neighbors until the reservoir is exhausted. They say that until the tank is full, they usually cut off the water and then have to use well water. To water the plants or, as in the case of Ianuzzi, the garden in which he takes out the vegetables that he will consume later, she has no choice but to do it with contaminated water.

"Here, the napas are rotten and it will also affect the entire Coast Party.The people of Lavalle and the coast must buy water for cops to brush their teeth. besides even more plastic than then, of course, that ends here in the trash, "says Máximo Mazzocco, founder of Eco House, a nonprofit civil society badociation whose main goal is to promote sustainable development, they filmed
In search of Toninas, a documentary that shows a multifactorial contamination through the Costa Party and General Lavalle.

"The rats are giant, the seagulls eat plastic and die in the sea. The water is disgusting, among other things, everything is wrong here," says Marcelo De Vita, 54, a neighbor of the Pavon region. . Speaking to LA NACION from the door of the dump, a local guard threatened to call the police.

The last section towards Pavon is a dirt road through which garbage trucks move, many of them with the back box open, so that they usually lose garbage on the way to the place .

It is not possible to enter the trash as it is a private property. Only the drone LA NACION allowed to access the images of piles of garbage gathered here. These are huge mountains of worn colors. Their only mountaineers are the operators of garbage and rat machines.

"An open dump is not ignorance, it is a matter of bad faith.We know so much about how to avoid these dump sites that, if nothing is wrong, is done to solve it, one must look for a reason other than ignorance, "says Antonio Brailovsky, UBA and postgraduate professor in environmental management at the National University of San Martín ( UNSAM). "The water cycle includes invisible water, which is groundwater that comes in through the rain, which is often the underground water that feeds the city." the relationship between the discharge and the water is direct, "he added.

The site where all garbage will stop is in the name of Madaqui SA and operated by the company Sopay SA Both, on behalf of Alfredo Dávila, who was contacted by LA NACION, but preferred not to do so. statements. These companies are remunerated by the Costa party, beyond their operation as part of an illegality, since the landfill is not authorized by the Provincial Agency for Sustainable Development (OPDS) . It is the public entity responsible for monitoring compliance with the regulations in force for the protection of the environment in the province of Buenos Aires.

"We should formally shut down all open dumps. But if you close a place without having a different alternative, you close one location with an environmental impact to generate another. We do what we do with municipalities to generate sustainable alternatives. We try to accompany them to make these changes, but municipalities must propose work programs, "said Javier Argilla, provincial director of waste OPDS.

"The OPDS is not playing a big role, the law 13 592 on the integrated management of solid urban waste requires the closure of open dumps in municipalities." OPDS is not a means effective to compel municipalities to respect the laws, "he said. Juan Ojeda, party advisor A Toda Costa. "When you have a municipality that is complicit – by the Costa party – and who is often the perpetrator of crimes against the environment, it becomes very difficult to improve the situation, beyond the complaints that we can formulate.Apart from the council of deliberation the majority has the party in power, so in all the cases the claims do not prosper ", he added.

When asked why they did not impose a fine on the Costa Party or General Lavalle for throwing garbage, Argilla replied: "We do not condemn them because we prefer resources to invest them. in the improvement. "

"The OPDS charges us.Some neighbors and I have repeatedly denounced.Do you know what they do?" They come here, the owner's guardian does not let them in as it is of a private property, and they turn around and leave, "Alejandra said. Santa Cruz, 51, from Pavon.

According to an inspection act dated August 2, 2017 to which LA NACION could access, the observations of the two inspectors of the OPDS indicate the following: "There was no smell to report on the site . […] As we visited the site, the caregiver approached and asked us to retire because it was privately owned. "

On this issue, Mazzocco of Eco House understands that this is a useless situation: "We have a private person here above a state agency, it's like not wanting to make the declaration of but the most absurd is that they inspect something that is not allowed to them.The truth is that we do not understand what they are doing. "

LA NACION repeatedly tried to contact Juan Pablo de Jesus, who also contacted several advisers of his party. Nobody wanted to make a statement for this note.

The inhabitants of General Lavalle also complain against the direction of José Rodríguez Ponte, Mayor of that city. "The management of Ponte has not done anything.Everything it has done, is to sign an agreement with the mayor of Jesus to move the landfill and make a discharge.But it does not matter. "We have no news that progress has been made to comply with this agreement," says Santa Cruz, a neighbor of the place.

Rodríguez Ponte says that one of his main goals as mayor is to eliminate this waste, but that, from the Coast Party, "there is no willingness to promote a change ", he added:" I badumed in 2015 that this had already been done over 20. I signed an agreement with the coast to move the landfill and bring it into a place offering the necessary conditions to be compatible with the environment.But the coast is moving at no turtle.This place already looks like the mountain, but the garbage. "

The agreement referred to is a document that the two municipalities signed last October in which they pledged to create a "sustainable environmental park". A waste sorting and recycling facility would operate and their final disposal would be in accordance with the rules of the OPDS.

"According to the law 25 916 on solid waste management in urban areas, municipalities must take care of it, although they often do not have the necessary resources, which is why some lines of credit are offered by the state for years aimed at promoting projects related to waste treatment, "said Federico Bordelois, coordinator of the Special Unit for Temporary Execution for Waste, the Ministry of the Environment. Environment and Sustainable Development of the Nation.

"If the landfill Pavon was a priority for the Costa party, it should go ahead with some sort of project, I've been looking for projects and ideas from the last eight years and there is no project. mark of will on the part of this municipality, "added Bordelois.

On June 24, Juan Pablo de Jesús announced on his Facebook account that he would leave office after 12 years in power. He now holds first place as a candidate for deputation of the province of Buenos Aires for the fifth electoral section. Thus, he will compete for a place in the legislature of Buenos Aires for the Frente de Todos. Instead, he chose Cristian Cardozo as successor, who will inherit the task of moving the garbage and then cleaning up where they are now.

The documentary
In search of Toninas, a production of Eco House and Influos, which shows a multifactorial pollution in the Costa Party and General Lavalle.

Pictures: Ricardo Pristupluk

Photographic edition: Fernanda Corbani

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