2016 Olympics: I took a fishing boat onto Rio's disgusting water and here's what I found | Politi

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The little blue wooden fishing boat has left the dock in Guanabara Bay, and as it slowly makes its way out into the deeper waters, we are surrounded by the powerful images that the organizers of the Brazilian Olympics want the world to see.

Sugarloaf Mountain feels close enough to poke with a fishing pole. The Christ the Redeemer statue looms high above, and its extended arms appear to be holding the thick clouds in the sky. The beaches, just a small sliver of the miles of them here, are empty but look perfect from afar.

And then, when I put down the camera and finally look down at the water, I see the trash.

It isn't the piles of it you may have seen in photographs that have moved from here in recent weeks, but it is all around the boat. Plastic bags. Restaurant cups. Soda bottles. A sanitary napkin. The water is covered with a noticeable film, in all directions, making it look like a thick green stew.

But the bigger concern is what I cannot see. The bacteria. The viruses. The human excrement. The Associated Press reported this week that it found levels of bacteria and viruses so high that ingesting just three teaspoons of bay water was likely to lead severe stomach problems.

Our captain, Gilmer Ferriera, tells us through a translator that there used to be dolphins in these waters, but no more. He tells us that, when he first started working on a fishing boat 35 years ago, he used to swim here regularly.

No more.

I ask him about the great promise of these Olympics, one of the reasons (besides the usual greed and graft) that the International Olympic Committee awarded Rio de Janeiro these Games seven years ago. Haven't the politicians here at least improved the water quality?

"Heh," he said with a huff. "They haven't cleaned up anything. It would take 30 years to clean this up."

The boat turns. There is another plastic bag, another piece of unidentifiable junk, another soda bottle. No, wait, the plastic soda bottle is moving. It's actually a turtle, and as it dives under the water, it is momentarily reassuring that at least some living thing can survive here.

* * *

Here is a sentence that you may not read in a lot of places this week: The Rio Olympics probably will be a success as an athletic event. And those last four words are important.

The venues are not perfect but they appear ready. The traffic is bad and the lines everywhere are long, but those are inconveniences and not major problems. The security was recently beefed up with machine-gun toting guards in Copacabana Beach and the Olympic Park, and while that doesn't guarantee that a terrorist act or street crimes won't occur, in a small two-day window here I haven't felt unsafe.

Mosquitos don't appear to be a problem, either. Wasn't everyone who stepped foot in the city supposed to be at serious risk for the Zika virus? That is still a real concern, but none of the recent visitors I've talked to has seen a mosquito, much less been bitten by one.

Even the water near the sailing venue in Guanabara Bay, according to several competitors and coaches, is cleaner. Three years ago, you couldn't take a practice run out there without stopping several times to pull debris off the boat. Or, sometimes, the debris stopped you.

"You see some people hit trash and they just get catapulted away," said Jena Hansen, a Danish sailor. That doesn't happen any more, or at least hasn't happened recently. "It's a lot cleaner. There's not as much that you can see now."

Still: Cleaning up the small fraction of the waters around for the sailing competition -- and boats are out there doing that nonstop, with at least one American competitor even helping the effort -- and truly cleaning the water are two completely different things.

And this is why, no matter what happens over the next two and a half weeks, the Olympics can't be a success for Rio. The broken promises to clean 80 percent of the water, to truly make a lasting and meaningful change for the people who live here, weren't just broken. They were completely disregarded.

This nation has spent billions to put on a show for the world, and even if it is a brilliant show without a single significant snag, it will have thrown away an opportunity that may never come again.

Nearly 70 percent of residents living in the Guanabara Bay area still lack basic sewage treatment, city officials said. And the conditions are worse in the favelas -- the slum shanty towns along the mountains around the region -- and their sewage pours into rivers and straight into the bay.

This was the latest dispatch from the World Health Organization: "It is suggested that all athletes should cover cuts and grazes with waterproof plasters prior to exposure, try to avoid swallowing the water, wash/shower as soon as possible after exposure and, as far as possible, minimize their time in the water and avoid going in the water after heavy rainfall if possible."

The athletes have come prepared. The open-water swimmers have trained to not open their mouths in the water. The sailors, according to coach Evan Aras, have "prepared for the worst while hoping for the best." None of the American competitors, knock on wood, have gotten sick recently.

But many in the city are asking the same question as the competitors themselves: Why is Rio doing so much to improve the water for a small number of visitors while ignoring the bigger problem?

"We will come here, we will sail, we will go home," said Ivan Bulaja, an Austrian sailing coach. "To have these beautiful beaches, it's just a shame that you can't swim in the water. Imagine what these beaches must have looked like centuries ago.

"I think it was a good chance for Rio. This is something that should have been done for the people of the city, not for us."

* * *

Our captain steers the little blue fishing boat near the coast and back toward the dock. He tells us that government officials decided to close off a nearby river, which helps keep the trash at bay.

At least, that is, until it rains.

"When it rains heavily, all that garbage floats in here," Gilmer Ferriera said. In his 35 years here, the conditions have gotten worse and worse, and now a once thriving fishing industry is dealing with the fallout. He sums it up in two words: Fewer fish.

Last winter, thousands of small dead fish surfaced in the water near the sailing venue. Photos of floating sofas and mattresses from nearby canals made international headlines in the months leading up to the Games, but you'll have to go well upstream to find them now.

Next month? Next year? Ferriera only knows this: "Worse. The water has gotten worse over the years."

The Olympics haven't changed that. On television over the next three weeks, the world is likely to see the miles of beaches, where hundreds of tourists will be sunbathing, playing volleyball or just chatting.

Look closely, and you might actually spot a few brave enough to swim.

Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.