Agência Brasil

Brasília - Representatives of the Water Defense Group will deliver a report today to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Contamined Areas in Brazil. The document relates instances of grave human rights violations involving over 15 thousand communities exposed to areas of contaminated soil and names large corporations and Brazilian government officials.

The report denounces cases such as the Mantovani Landfill, in the city of Santo Antonio de Posse, in the state of São Paulo, where 63 industries deposited approximately 500 thousand tons of toxic waste in an area surrounded by communities. The document also refers to the discharge of 700 thousand tons of heavy metals and waste from the Tietê River into Lake Carapicuíba, also in São Paulo. These two cases are identified by the secretary general of the organization, Leonardo Morelli, as the worst cases of contamination and impunity in Brazil, involving government officials and large multinational corporations.

Translation: David Silberstein