Despite that one of the objectives of the Riachuelo sanitation to mitigate pollution from industrial sources, it emerged that the body responsible for carrying out the initiative does not know how many companies operate on the basin.

The data contained in a report of the General Audit Office (AGN), which analyzed the work of the Authority Matanza-Riachuelo Basin (ACUMAR), the office consists of the provinces, Buenos Aires and the city of Buenos Aires, responsible for improving the situation watercourse considered the eighth most polluted place in the world.

"At the closing date of the audit, ACUMAR did not know the total number of establishments in the Basin," says research and adds: "effluents outside the norm were noted in inspections of companies reconverted", which means that a complex who it adapted its operation to sanitation plans "does not necessarily no longer pollute".

From these and other "weaknesses", the AGN concluded that "the program of industrial conversion is not very efficient and effective, and should be reviewed in the context of a comprehensive policy for pollution control."

The Plan

To achieve its mission, the ACUMAR must run the so-called Comprehensive Plan Environmental Sanitation (PISA), which has fourteen lines of action, which the audit examined four: sanitation of waste dumps; cleaning margins; monitoring water quality, sediment and air; and the aforementioned industrial pollution.

On the first item, the AGN said the Basin Authority "performs cleaning tasks but does not sanitize landfills and / or remediation of affected land."

And even so the work could not be completed; the report explains that "considering that in 2015 all the garbage dumps should have been clean, however there still remain 66, a delay in activity is observed."

In addition, auditors found that "62% of clean garbage dumps have been reinserted", meaning that the same sites have become to accumulate waste, "which undermines the effectiveness of the action".

Furthermore, the AGN says that "the human resources assigned to tasks sanitation and prevention of formation of new landfills is not enough".

The issue of waste is covered by the Master Plan for Management of Municipal Solid Waste (PMGRISU) which, according to the Audit, "was made without sufficient information or the involvement of all -in interested reference to the municipalities affected by the Riachuelo, and a timetable for action whose terms are unenforceable."

As for the relationship with the various jurisdictions, the research suggests that "ACUMAR has failed to promote a comprehensive policy of solid waste in the municipalities to achieve the reduction and source separation as well as a system of separate collection" and that in fact "the only one who does this practice is Moron".

Now, does this mean that there were no achievements in waste? Although the watchdog states that "cleaning garbage dumps has proved inefficient and failed economically  (for the high rates of reintegration)", it does recognize that only "progress has been made in generating ecopoints".

These are plants for the treatment and valuation of certain wastes. However, there is a problem. It is that for AGN "ecopoints do not solve the management of urban solid waste in the middle and lower basin of the Riachuelo, where generation (garbage) is vastly superior to the volumes anticipated in the operation."

For example, the ecopoints of Merlo, La Matanza and Lanús "do not solve the problem, pointing to prunings and debris (up only) 10% of the waste generated in the basin".

In addition, complex operating in the municipalities of Morón, Avellaneda, Lomas de Zamora and Almirante Brown "have the ability to treat" because these areas  of Buenos Aires generate "more than double the waste" that can handle ecopoints.

This lack of foresight led to the Audit observed that the ecopoints "do not fully attack the problem, and technical and economic sustainability is uncertain because they have not been designed according to previous feasibility studies".

Moreover, as for the monitoring of water quality, sediment and air, at the time of the survey "was not operating the Comprehensive Center for Environmental Monitoring and Control", said the audit.

Records

Another issue highlighted in the report are the various shortcomings that appear in the records ACUMAR. And, beyond the "errors of collating and foliatura" they can be noted "breaches of terms and forms of agreements" as expense reports due or submitted after the deadline by the municipalities.

Also, "delays in acts related to industrial control, that have a high impact on many levels as they assume that (in the meantime) companies continue rollovers outside established parameters" were detected.

And also, the auditors noted that "ACUMAR performs expenditures and contracts with municipalities with renditions (expense) pending; and approves early works although the records do not include technical and legal documentation (justify) the choice of contractor "who will carry forward the enterprise in question.

As Pearl, the AGN tells of a dossier on industrial control in which it was awarded by public tender to the company Recovering S.A. the task of eradicating 10 thousand tons of hazardous waste within six months and for an amount of 18.6 million pesos.

Why did the Watchdog choose that record? It’s because no analysis determining how many tons of garbage were to be eradicated were found, "with which recruitment may be uneconomic," says the AGN and completed that, "given the amounts involved in recruitment, they should have conducted more detailed studies for hazardous waste required are removed to avoid overbilling."