With just a little over a year to go before the Olympic torch is lit in Rio de Janeiro, the city faces a serious crisis as locations where many of the aquatics based events will be held are still heavily contaminated and could pose serious health risks to the athletes that compete. A study conducted by the Associated Press shows that the water in Guanabara Bay is riddled with bacteria from human sewage, excrement, and other forms of garbage.
"What you have there is basically raw sewage," said John Griffith, a marine biologist at the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. He conducted extensive analysis on the testing methods used by the AP.
"It's all the water from the toilets and the showers and whatever people put down their sinks, all mixed up, and it's going out into the beach waters. Those kinds of things would be shut down immediately if found here," he said, referring to the U.S.
The study was composed of four rounds of testing at each of the three Olympic water venues plus the nearby Ipanema beach, which is a haven for tourists. The results showed that not one of the venues was fit for swimming or boating.
Brazilian officials have tried to downplay concerns, saying that the venues will be ready by the time the games start in 2016.
Leonardo Daemon, coordinator of water quality monitoring for the state's environmental agency, said officials are strictly following Brazilian regulations on water quality, which are all based on bacteria levels, as are those of almost all nations.
"What would be the standard that should be followed for the quantity of virus? Because the presence or absence of virus in the water ... needs to have a standard, a limit," he said. "You don't have a standard for the quantity of virus in relation to human health when it comes to contact with water."
