To Fix Water Crisis, Brazil Turns to Big Projects
A plan to tap a long-polluted dam to alleviate a punishing water shortage draws fire
SÃO PAULO—As he stood by the dam that is a last hope for this Brazilian megacity to avoid water rationing, marina worker Valdir Mastrocezari saw a problem. He also smelled it.
Baking under the noonday sun, near the drought-exposed shoreline of the massive Billings reservoir, was a foul soup of raw sewage laced with human excrement.
The state government plans to use treated water only from non-polluted parts of the reservoir to...