The accident that closed the Rio-Niterói Bridge turns 4 years old this Saturday (14). The "ship graveyard" in Guanabara Bay remains unresolved.
The São Lourenço Channel is the most critical point in the region. The site contains more than 80 abandoned vessels that threaten biodiversity.
Inea works on technical consolidation and does not foresee removals. Niterói invested R$162.5 million in the first phase of dredging the channel.
The accident that closed the Rio-Niterói Bridge completes four years this Saturday (14). Since then, the problem of the so-called “ship graveyard” in Guanabara Bay remains unsolved.
In 2022, the bulk carrier São Luiz broke loose from its anchor during a windstorm and hit the bridge structure. The episode brought to light a problem that had existed for years: the presence of abandoned vessels in Guanabara Bay.
One of the most critical points is in the São Lourenço Channel, close to Ilha da Conceição, between the municipalities of Niterói and São Gonçalo. The region has more than 80 rusty and completely abandoned boats.
It is in this area that the Niterói Public Fishing Terminal was built, the result of a project worth millions of reais that was supposed to generate jobs for the region, but never came into operation. Currently, the site is surrounded by marine debris.
According to the Baía Viva Movement, a socio-environmentalist organization formed by researchers, ecologists and environmental defenders and a pioneer in the defense of Guanabara Bay, the concept of a “vessel graveyard” in the waters of the bay was created by the movement itself in 1992, during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, ECO-92.
At the time, researchers already identified the stretch of the São Lourenço Canal as the most critical. The region had a concentration of abandoned or sunken boats, barges and tugboats, with leaks of industrial pollutants, such as oils, paints and grease, which threatened marine biodiversity.
No withdrawal date
Since then, several measures have been announced, including studies and actions to dredge the most affected area. Large ships anchored in the middle of Guanabara Bay were removed, but the removal of abandoned vessels in the most critical section, the São Lourenço Channel, does not yet have a start date.
Shortly after the accident on the Rio-Niterói Bridge, in 2022, the Baía Viva Movement presented a representation to the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) to demand action from the responsible bodies.
The initiative sought to guarantee the removal of abandoned hulls and demand compliance with the obligations set out in a Federal Court decision. The representation resulted in the proposal, by the MPF in Rio de Janeiro, of a Public Civil Action (ACP).
According to Sergio Ricardo Potiguara, co-founder of Movimento Baía Viva, the state government failed to meet the deadline established by the Federal Court to begin the removal of abandoned vessels in Guanabara Bay. Planning called for the operation to begin on August 1st, but, according to him, no removals were carried out.
The expert also states that the accumulation of boats and siltation directly harm fishing activity, in addition to posing a risk of contamination of water and marine life.
"The presence of vessels there causes increased siltation, the loss of depth in the bay, that mud, the sediment accumulates, and the fishing vessels are stuck in the sea. Fishermen are unable to do their work there. This has generated impoverishment, a social impact on fishing communities", he said.
The Navy, through the Port Authority, mapped all abandoned vessels, with information on their exact location — latitude and longitude — and photographs. The report was delivered to the MPF and the state government to support the process of removing the boats.
In a note, the State Environmental Institute (Inea) reported that it is still working on “consolidating technical information” about abandoned vessels. According to the agency, the data will serve as a basis for planning and logistics of the next steps. There is still no forecast for when the removals will begin.
Niterói City Hall states that, although responsibility for dredging the region lies with the state and federal governments, it invested around R$162.5 million in the first phase of dredging the São Lourenço Channel, completed between 2024 and 2026.
According to the municipality, the work removed approximately 1.6 million cubic meters of sediment and increased the depth of the channel from 7 to 11 meters, in the section between the Rio-Niterói Bridge and the port area.
The city hall is now planning a second stage, in cooperation with the state and federal governments, to remove the sunken vessels near Conceição Island.
