Underwater logging in Brazil

Last week it was slime-diving in the sewers of Mexico City; today brings a continuation of our strange job (underwater division) series.

This one's from yesterday's New York Times story by Brazil correspondent Larry Rohter.

The profession of the day is underwater logging within the reservoirs of Brazil, where vast forested areas were flooded in the 1970s without clearing the land first.

Now submerged tree trunks are hindering navigation, and Brazil has begun sending divers with special hydraulic chain saws 70 feet down into the 1,100 square-mile reservoir created by the Tucuruí dam.

Benedito Sidinei Correia de Medeiros, a 38-year-old diver, has worked himself up after five years to a salary of $275 a month.

"On a good day, you could cut maybe 8 or 10 trees," he said. "You have to be very careful down there, because the chain saw can slice you in half if you let it go, and it's so dark during the rainy season that you can't see anything."

Still, he describes his work as "neat" and "a lot of fun." [As I recall, the Mexico City slime-diver described his as "an adventure."]

De Medeiros noted that logger-divers need to be constantly looking out for alligators, snakes, and a particular species of tree whose bark is poisonous.

Here's the story.
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Drowned, Not Downed, Trees in the Amazon Get Nasty

A funny thing happened back when the Brazilian government was building the giant $8 billion dam that bears the name of this town in the eastern Amazon.

Somebody neglected to cut down the trees and clear the other growth in the 1,100-square-mile area that would be flooded, and 20 years later that has become a problem.

Decomposing vegetation has resulted in the emission of millions of tons of greenhouse gases.

Submerged tree trunks hinder navigation, scientists worry that increasing acidity of water in the reservoir could corrode the dam's turbines, and mosquito infestations have been so intense that some settlements have been forced to relocate.

To solve the problem, until recently, divers using special hydraulic chain saws had been swimming down 70 feet or so into the reservoir, attaching themselves to submerged tree trunks, cutting them and then watching as the trunks were hauled to the surface by iron cables.

"On a good day, you could cut maybe 8 or 10 trees," said Benedito Sidinei Correia de Medeiros, a 38-year-old diver who, after five years, had worked up to a salary of $275 a month.

"You have to be very careful down there, because the chain saw can slice you in half if you let it go, and it's so dark during the rainy season that you can't see anything."

Still, he described his work as "neat" and "a lot of fun."

Though divers constantly need to be on the lookout for alligators, snakes and a particular species of tree whose bark is poisonous, he also recalled curious dolphins and bass playfully approaching and nudging him.

Early this year, however, Eletronorte, the government agency that administers the dam, ordered a stop to the tree removal.

Agency officials say that lumber companies were not fulfilling their contractual production quotas and payment schedules, and further, that they now see environmental benefits in leaving the reservoir intact.

"The water quality of the reservoir has actually improved in recent years, and with that, we are seeing a lot of schools of fish forming in these trees," said Antonio Raimundo Ribeiro Coimbra, director of environmental affairs for the agency.

"It's an ecosystem that creates a niche for fish to reproduce, in the same way that a sunken ship does, while at the same time providing protection against predatory fishing."

The aquatic loggers acknowledge falling short of production targets, though they say it results from the agency's recent decision to raise the water level of the reservoir, making their work harder.

But they too cite the environment in their own defense.

"Every dead tree that we cut down at the bottom of the reservoir is one less live tree being felled in the forest," said Rogério Corte Leal, owner of the main company harvesting the timber.

"We're also providing a service by keeping the lake clean and resolving a mess that we didn't create."

Tucuruí is a product of the 1970's era of "Brasil Grande," when the military dictatorship then in power undertook megaprojects like the Trans-Amazon Highway.

The dam is the largest entirely within Brazil and is cited by Eletronorte as a model for the more than 70 other hydroelectric power projects that the government plans to build in the Amazon.

But in their haste to complete the project, Brazil's rulers ignored warnings from environmentalists and engineers and inundated the tropical forest before removing the trees.

When they belatedly got around to addressing the problem, the company chosen to do the job was the military's own pension fund, which had no logging experience but was well connected politically.

Using the submerged forest as collateral, the company was able to obtain more than $100 million in credits.

But after removing some especially valuable hardwoods, it went bankrupt, leading to huge losses for creditors and a congressional corruption investigation that the government eventually quashed.

"It was all a great big financial scam, compounded by the stupidity of the federal agencies," said Osorio Pacheco Alves, the municipal secretary of water and sewage here.

For years, local people here would clandestinely remove what tree trunks they could.

But a decade ago, Eletronorte allowed bidders to begin removing the wood on a commercial scale, awarding the 15-year contracts that have now been scrapped.

In an effort to double the dam's generating capacity, to 8,000 megawatts, new turbines are being installed.

But critics predict that with the wood no longer being removed, the problems will intensify.

Though submersion slows the decay of tree trunks, they rot eventually, releasing carbon dioxide. Scientists and divers say the water in the reservoir is becoming more acidic, increasing the risk of corrosion to equipment, a notion Mr. Coimbra dismissed.

Scientists are even more concerned about the seasonal rise and fall of the water level here and the resulting decay of vegetation.

Tucuruí is "virtually a methane factory," said Philip M. Fearnside, a researcher at the National Institute for Amazon Research.

Research suggests, he added, that dead trees in the reservoir can serve as "conduits" carrying methane from the soil of the reservoir floor.

During much of the 1990's, he said, Tucuruí produced more greenhouse gas emissions, from 7 million to 10 million tons a year, than São Paulo, with more than 20 million people.

Fishermen and other residents here say that amateur divers are once again clandestinely removing tree trunks from the lake, putting their lives at risk by not using proper equipment.

Mr. Coimbra said the responsibility for preventing that lay with another government agency, the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources, which has said it does not have the money or the manpower to fulfill all its duties.

"I don't know if this situation is really happening," he said, "but if it is, it has to be suspended.''