Political explanations 1

ABES Bio magazine

I worked with Eng. Enaldo Cravo Peixoto during part of the year 1971, and this one was told to me by several characters who took part in the “interview”: Fernando Botafogo, Adilson Seroa da Motta, Constantino Arruda, Volpi, ...

Enaldo Cravo Peixoto, born in Alagoas, an engineer of the City Hall of the then Federal District, raised to Secretary of Works by Carlos Lacerda when he was governor of the then State of Guanabara, around 1961-62, was quite a character. Short, ugly and very friendly, talkative, in 1969 he was president of a project office of Engineering Science Inc. (Ludwig brothers), which designed the ocean sewage interceptor of the city of Rio de Janeiro, including the famous Ipanema submarine outfall. Eminent Brazilian and American professionals took part.

When the project was ready, it was presented to the public through the press and a great discussion began about whether “the poop would return or not to the beach” (a Byzantine discussion, since the poop was already on the beach). But the discussion lasted for months.

Finally (1969?) a press conference was scheduled (at that time there was no name “public hearing” nor PowerPoint). The specialists prepared a lecture with abundant audiovisual material (today in museums: slides, overhead projectors, posters, blackboards, etc.). The presentation was supposed to be in language within the reach of laypeople. And so it was done.

Once the presentation was finished, the question phase began. No matter how much everything that had been studied was explained, the predominant currents, bacterial decay, dilution, drifting cards, in short, it always came back to the same type of question: what guarantees that “the poop will not return to the beach”.

After more than an hour, a reporter asked the same question again and the technicians were preparing to answer once more when Eng. Enaldo, until then silent, decided that he would explain. General panic among the technicians! Eng. Enaldo was the owner of the firm but knew almost nothing about that.

Enaldo’s speech to the reporter:

-Dear journalist, write down what I am going to say (he waits a little, creating suspense), beginning journalists wrote: “what guarantees that the poop will not return is the theory of the relative impedance of deep waters....”

General perplexity.....

After a prolonged silence, the moderator took advantage of the fact that there were no more questions and closed the meeting. The submarine outfall was approved, the press questioned no more and the next day the brilliant explanation by Eng. Enaldo came out in the newspapers.

The “Ipanema Outfall” has been operating for about 40 years, in a manner, as they say, “fully satisfactory”.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # written in Jul/Sep 2016 R2026 Jan Ra, 2,380 keystrokes