Secret Krukutu secrets

>>> Oct/Dec 2018, ABES Bio Magazine

I heard this story many times and from several sources, which led me to seek out the protagonist, engineer Paulo Ferreira, a distinguished professional in our field, whom I had the honor of being a colleague of at COMASP-SABESP in the 1970s, which helped in this summary:

In the 1960s, the HazenSawier consortium prepared a Water Master Plan for greater São Paulo (GSP), which included, in the southern pole of the metropolis, the Capivari (runs to the coast) - Monos (runs inland) river system, for 6 m³/s, which were greatly missed in 2015. GSP lies on the watershed divides of several river basins. In 1971, GSP produced less than 15 m³/s. Today (2018) it is 180 m³/s.

The complete technical studies so that the water reversal could be carried out in the least impactful way were concluded around ±1991 (estimated investment of US$ 150 million, 1990 basis).

In the EIA-RIMA, attention was given to an acculturated indigenous village that lives in the region, the “Krukutu village”. The understandings, including in public hearings, through their leaderships (chiefs and shamans), were reasonable in the demands for environmental compensations and other benefits (cars, telephones, houses, demarcations, etc.).

Around 1992, the existence of the “Krukutus”, disclosed by SABESP itself, attracted an NGO of white men with studies abroad (they even had an accent), claiming to protect local environmental interests, including those of the indigenous people.

This NGO, with curious and easy access to the media, transformed the meetings, until then fraternal and objective, into difficult and inconclusive ones, always postponing solutions and returning to points already resolved.

Patiently, Sabesp kept meeting the new conditions; the environmental studies were revised and redone about three times, each time with more requirements, such as the mapping of all the flora of a region much larger than the small area that would be flooded.

The “Krukutus” were already happy and satisfied, but the NGO, very aggressive, supported by environmental agencies evidently intimidated, placed more and more obstacles, until, with no more possible requirements left, they claimed to have discovered a trail used in the past for religious ceremonies, connecting two indigenous cemeteries, and therefore the system could not be built.

As it seemed that not even the Krukutus knew of that trail nor of the alleged ceremonies, the NGO was asked for the location of the trail, but the “local white men” said that unfortunately they could not reveal the route of the trail because it was “secret”, and the person who had revealed the existence of the trail wanted it to remain so!!!

The Capivari-Monos System was not built, the work (and costs) incurred were lost, the population continues to have a shortage of water sources, the waters continue running uselessly to the sea, the Krukutus received no further benefits, and, what is worse, the sites are being occupied disorderly.

Miguel Fernández y Fernández, engineer, chronicler and columnist, member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the Institute of Engineering # written in Oct/Dec 2018, 2,550 characters.