The record project
If you search the internet for definitions of the Riachuelo, you will find a river that flows through famous neighbourhoods in Buenos Aires before bringing its waters to the Rio de La Plata. You will also discover that swimming in its waters is like swimming in a thick, black yogurt. It is, in fact, one of the most polluted rivers on Earth. For centuries, its water has been the collector of industrial waste, ending up with arsenic, chromium, copper, zinc and other toxic waste. It also collects the waste water from the homes of the homeless that have sprung up on its banks. It is in no uncertain terms: a gigantic sewer.
This has always been the case, since colonial times, when butchers were already dumping offal in it. However, next year should mark the beginning of a turnaround. A gigantic clean-up project, funded by the World Bank and the Argentine government, will put an end to one of the largest open-air discharges in the world, capable of endangering the health of millions of people and the entire ecosystem on which two of the main capitals of South America: Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Directing the work is a Pini Group engineer, Pierluigi Nionelli. We interviewed him.
Growing up in the Susa Valley in Piedmont, he worked in Ecuador and other South American countries for years. From the Alps to the Andes, how did it happen?
“Towards the end of my studies in Mining Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, I started working in Geodata for the construction of the old Frejus railway tunnel. Then I did a master’s degree in mechanized excavation in 2006-2007 and then I started working for Geodata in China, Brazil, Africa and Spain. I followed the design of the different phases of mainly underground construction sites. In 2008 we won a race in Ecuador for hydroelectric design, it was a new field and in 2009 I started travelling up and down from Ecuador.”
Then the return trips were made less frequently?
“Yes, the project continued until 2013, but in the meantime I met my wife. She is also an engineer, but civil, she graduated in Italy, in Milan, but she is a citizen of Ecuador.”
You stayed in South America?
“I followed the Lima metro project in Peru for a year, our first son was born and we returned to Quito, me as managing director of the Geodata branch that dealt with Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.”
When did you arrive in Argentina?
“In 2018, Geodata became Chinese property and I moved to Buenos Aires to follow the whole of Latin America (LATAM, ed.) and in particular the project for the rehabilitation of the Riachuelo basin, of which I am the works director. I am continuing with this commitment, along with that of Business Executive LATAM, now that Geodata has been taken over by Pini Group. Among the different projects we are following are the new metro line in Santiago in Chile and the design of railway works in Peru. While in Brazil we operate in São Paulo and we also follow a project related to nuclear.”
How did your passion for mining engineering come about?
“I remember in elementary school, when I was 8 years old, the father of one of our classmates came to class to talk about his work: he was a mining engineer. His stories fascinated me and I already had a passion for everything that was digging and underground and I started to think that when I grew up I would do that. Therefore, at the time of university, the choice was between mining engineering and biotechnology, another interest of mine at the time.”
You toured around South America a lot, what difference did you notice between the Andean culture and that of the Atlantic area?
“One of the characteristics of my job is to travel a lot, and I really love to see how people’s lives change, their daily habits in different countries. I can say that between the serrano, that is, the Andean, and the porteño, those who live in coastal cities like Buenos Aires, there are obviously differences. However, they are the same as there may be in Europe between those who live in the Alps and those who live in port cities. In general, the Andeans are a little more closed, wary, but when you visit them you find beautiful, hard-working people. The porteño are more sympathetic, more sociable and open, but sometimes less reliable work-wise. I like both, and especially among all cities I love Buenos Aires for its European flavour, even its current decadence can have a certain charm.”
Argentina and Buenos Aires have been in a particularly serious economic crisis for some time. As you can see from there.
“Argentina is a country with great resources that, regardless of the political side in power, do not want to try to overcome economic and financial weakness. The result is a hyperinflation that last year was 100% (and that in the summer reached a peak of 115.6%). Go out and buy the milk that cost 1 yesterday and you do not know if you will pay 1.5 or if they will sell it to you because they do not know what price to do. It is a situation that weighs heavily on the middle and working class.”
Is Buenos Aires a dangerous city?
“No more than other big cities. It depends on the areas. I live in Puerto Madero with my family and the quality of life is good.”
What about the infrastructure?
“There are many construction sites underway, but funding depends substantially on multilateral bodies.”
You are leading a major clean-up project funded by the World Bank in Buenos Aires. What is it?
“I call it the record project because there are several records. It is the first time that a particular type of excavating machine is used in South America. We dug deepest well in Buenos Aires: 60 meters. We built about 40 kilometres of tunnels and a hundred wells with diameters between 3 and 60 meters.
We built a tunnel under the Rio de la Plata which is 12km long.”
What is the reason for this large project?
“Essentially, since its foundation, Buenos Aires has dumped industrial waste and illegal waste into the Riachuelo, which has become one of the 10 most polluted areas in the world. In the early 2000s, a civil suit forced the city to intervene. The World Bank has intervened to finance the project, which began in 2017 and plans to intercept the existing sewage drains, some dating back over a century ago, and bring them with a single underground pipeline to a sewage treatment plant. From the latter, the pre-treated liquid is discharged at a distance from the coast into the Rio de la Plata, thus exploiting the dilution effect.”
Where are the jobs?
“The third lot, the treatment plant, is coming to an end. The underground works have been completed and are expected to be put into operation in 2024. It is an intervention that will benefit an area of about 5 million people because the drinking water of Buenos Aires is taken from the Rio de la Plata.”
“Rio de la Plata in Spanish means ‘silver river’. In recent centuries we can say that it has also become of copper, zinc, chrome and other metals and pollutants poured into its waters by discharging industrial sewage in its tributary, the Riachuelo. Thanks to the intervention directed by the engineer Nionelli, it is hoped that from next year, it will return to shine with silvery and metallic reflections, only metaphorically.”
The river with two names
The Río Matanza rises west of General Las Heras, in the province of Buenos Aires, arrives at the bridge La Noria, along the Avenida General Paz, changes its name and, up to the mouth, is called Riachuelo. It flows into the Rio de la Plata between the Barrio Porteño de La Boca and the port area of Dock Sud. The river and the surrounding area, known as Cuenca Matanza-Riachuelo or Matanza-Riachuelo basin, is home to 23% of the residents of the Buenos Aires metropolitan area and 9.16% of the country’s total population.
Sea or river?
The Río de la Plata is the estuary formed by the Uruguay River and the Paranà River. The point where the two rivers meet is about 48 km wide, increasing to about 220 km where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean after about 290 km. Although it appears on maps as an Atlantic Gulf, due to the flow of fresh water from the two main rivers and their tributaries, which prevents the tidal backflow of salt water, the Rio de la Plata is today unanimously considered a river.