Matanza River
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
La Matanza River, (in English: The Slaughter River) better known as El Riachuelo (in English: The Little River), is a water course of 64 km (40 mi) in Argentina, that originates in the Buenos Aires Province and defines the southern boundary of the Buenos Aires federal district. The Spanish word boca (in English: river mouth) gives the name to the La Boca neighbourhood, and consequently to the Boca Juniors football club, located near where and river flows into the Río de la Plata.
From its source down to La Noria Bridge on Avenida General Paz, is usually referred to as Río La Matanza, and from that point on as Riachuelo. In its basin of 2,240 km² (865 sq mi) live approximately 3.5 million people.
The south-easterly storm wind, known as Sudestada, impedes the waters of the Riachuelo from reaching the Río de la Plata, producing frequent flooding in low-lying areas like La Boca and Barracas. Since 1995 a number of repairs have been carried out to prevent such occurrences.
The watercourse receives a significant quantity of industrial waste from the numerous factories along it, especially the leather processing facilities, which makes the Riachuelo a polluted river. Among the most dangerous contaminants are heavy metals and waste water from all the saturated layers of the basin.
Its main tributaries are the Cañuelas, Chacón and Morales streams in the Province of Buenos Aires, and the Cildánez stream (currently piped) in the Greater Buenos Aires urban area.
In 1993 Menem's Secretary of Environment María Julia Alsogaray presented a 3 year project to clean the Riachuelo that was approved, but never started. The former public functionary, daughter of Álvaro Alsogaray, is currently under trial for misappropriation of those public funds.
According to Argentine newspaper Página/12, of the $250 million dollars budget, only $90 million remain. $6 million were lost in punitive interests, $150 million were destined to unrelated social projects, and only $1 million was used for actual cleanup. Critics have also noted that this cleanup was useless, as all that was done was removing sunken ship hulls, but nothing was done to prevent new more cases of abandoned ships sinking[1].
