Buenos Aires sewage leads to dispute between Uruguay and Argentina

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Argentine government’s planned construction of the underground outlet for the Berazategui wastewater treatment plant in Buenos Aires has given rise to diplomatic disputes with Uruguay.

In recent weeks, delegations from both countries to the Administrative Commission for the Río Plata (CARP) have exchanged notes expressing their opposing positions on whether the project should be approved by the Uruguayan government.

The project is part of a rehabilitation plan that the Argentine state-owned company Agua y Saneamientos Argentinos S.A. (AySA) plans to implement. According to AySA, about 120,000 cubic meters per hour of the treated liquids will be discharged into the Río de la Plata.

The outlet will be 7.5 km long and four meters in diameter, through which the waste of about four million Buenos Aires residents will pass.

On June 29, the Argentine delegation submitted a note to CARP indicating that the 180 days available to the Uruguayan side to formulate objections to the “project” presented by the Alberto Fernández government had expired.

The document also states that “in accordance with the commitment,” a copy of the bidding documents had been sent, complying with the requirements of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which will co-finance the works, and that the pre-selection process of the companies that will carry out the works had already been carried out, so that at this stage “no changes could be made to the bidding documents, as this would affect, among other things, the principle of equality of bidders.”

The confrontation over Argentina’s wastewater project is not the only issue the two countries disagree with under CARP. Weeks ago, Argentina submitted a note clarifying that it had approved the dredging of the port of Montevideo to a depth of 13 meters and not 14 meters, as Uruguay claims.