2016 Summer Olympics: Filthy Rio de Janeiro Water a Threat at 2016 Olympics

RIO DE JANEIRO — The waters where Olympians will compete in swimming and boating events next summer in South America’s first Games are rife with human sewage and present a serious health risk for athletes, as well as for visitors to this city’s famous beaches.

An investigation by The Associated Press found dangerously high levels of viruses and bacteria from sewage at the sites for the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic water sports.

The A.P. conducted four rounds of tests starting in March. The results have alarmed international experts and dismayed competitors training in Rio de Janeiro, some of whom have become ill with fevers, vomiting and diarrhea.

The ailments could prevent an athlete from competing for days.

“This is by far the worst water quality we’ve ever seen in our sailing careers,” said Ivan Bulaja, a coach for the Austrian team, which has spent months training in Guanabara Bay.

David Hussl, a sailor, fell ill.

“I’ve had high temperatures and problems with my stomach,” he said. “It’s always one day completely in bed and then usually not sailing for two or three days.”

Water pollution has long plagued Brazil’s urban areas, where most sewage is not collected, let alone treated. In Rio, much of the waste runs through open-air ditches to fetid streams and rivers that feed the Olympic water sites and blight the city’s beaches.

Dr. Richard Budgett, the medical director for the International Olympic Committee, said after seeing the A.P. findings that the I.O.C. and Brazilian authorities should continue their program of testing only for bacteria to determine whether the water is safe for athletes. That policy is the accepted standard globally, he said.

“We’ve had reassurances from the World Health Organization and others that there is no significant risk to athlete health,” Budgett said.
Many water and health experts in the United States and Europe are pushing regulatory agencies to include viral testing in determining water quality because most illnesses from recreational water activities are related to viruses, not bacteria.

Brazilian authorities pledged that an overhaul of the city’s waterways would be among the most significant legacies of the Olympics. But the stench of raw sewage still greets travelers at Rio’s international airport. Prime beaches remain deserted because the surf is thick with sludge, and periodic die-offs leave the Olympic lake littered with rotting fish.

More than 10,000 athletes from more than 200 countries are expected to compete from Aug. 5 to 21 in the 2016 Games. Nearly 1,400 of them will come into contact with water contaminated by sewage as they sail in Guanabara Bay, swim off Copacabana Beach, and canoe and row on the brackish waters of Rodrigo de Freitas Lake. Starting next week, hundreds of athletes will take to the waters in Olympic trial events.

Brazilian officials say the water will be safe, but the A.P. testing over five months did not find one venue suitable for swimming or boating, according to international experts, who said it was too late for a cleanup.

“What you have there is basically raw sewage,” said John Griffith, a marine biologist at the independent Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. Griffith examined the protocols, methodology and results of theA.P. tests. “It’s all the water from the toilets and the showers and whatever people put down their sinks, all mixed up, and it’s going out into the beach waters,” he said.

In the United States, Griffith said, areas with such levels of contamination “would be shut down immediately.