Among many South American projects Kay worked on in the 1990s, one sought to protect the largest wetland on earth: the Pantanal in Brazil.
In the early-1990s there were plans to engineer the Paraguay River like we’ve done to the Mississippi. Remove the natural back-and-forth meanders, straighten channels and tributaries, and dredge the river bottom, again and again, to allow for cheap transport. In this case it would let barges carry Brazilian soybeans to downriver ports, and to the Atlantic.
The project was called the “hidrovia”, waterway, I guess. The engineering would increase the speed and volume of the river, and lower the water table, which would dramatically damage the surrounding wetlands. Kay worked with local and international NGOs to investigate impacts to the Pantanal, and was surprised to find that the US Army Corps of Engineers was advising hidrovia proponents in Argentina. The Corps has a notorious history of habitat-destructing engineering projects in the US. So the NGOs set up a meeting at the Corps’ office in Buenos Aires, to find out if steps were being taken to protect the wetlands.
Kay described the office as “palatial”, and the group was met by a Corps director who gave them all happy talk about how wonderful the hidrovia would be. She, and others, responded with questions. Direct questions. Technical questions. She said the director became increasingly agitated. After 30 minutes he asked them to leave. They said they had an hourlong appointment, and he hadn’t begun to answer their inquiries. He then called security, and guards forced them to leave. Dumped them in a parking lot.
This was 30 years ago, and I really don’t know the issue. Apparently ongoing local pushback got bad press, and forced international agencies, who were asked to provide loans for the hidrovia, to investigate. The project stalled. I don’t know who asked the questions at the meeting. But Kay always did thorough preparation, and was unwilling to accept convenient statements that didn’t answer her concerns. Classic Treakle.
I looked up hidrovia online today, and it seems like there is now a renewed effort to channelize and dredge the Paraguay river.