The day is still dark when Edmo Rodrigues da Costa sets out in his 20-foot fishing boat, carefully maneuvering around clumps of trash and mounds of putrid sludge in the sewage-infested waters of Rio de Janeiro’s Guanabara Bay.
For 30 years, Costa has trolled the bay that will host Olympic sailing events in 2016, setting his nets by the pink dawn light, hoping to catch sea bass, Atlantic bigeyes and shrimp.
But slowly, year after year, the catches have diminished.
In this March 3, 2015 photo, fisherman Cicero Romao Batista smokes after a morning of fishing in Guanabara bay at the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The 69-year-old widow who’s been fishing since the 1970’s said he still fishes to supplement his monthly government pension. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A good day out two decades ago would bring in $200 worth of fish. Today, Costa says a successful haul fetches $50. Sometimes, the floating refuse he finds is worth more than his catch, like the recent day he found two large planks of hardwood and yanked them aboard.
He and 30 or so other fishermen work out of the garbage-strewn docks sitting right under the Red Line highway leading to the international airport, where the polluted waters of the Fundao and Cunha canals meet to flow into Guanabara. The men blame industrial and sewage pollution for their empty nets.
“We’re here in this sewage, living here with this trash,” Costa says. “Nothing is done to clean it up.”
The fishermen bring their catches to a market on the dock, which sells fish at lower prices than supermarkets.
Studies by biologists and health experts recommend that any fish from the bay be “well cooked” to kill any bacteria or virus. But there have been no warnings from Rio’s government against eating fish from the waters.
Rio state authorities say they’re working to make good on a pledge made in Rio’s Olympic bid to cut the bay’s pollution by 80 percent.
But Costa and the other fishermen who see the water up close say they’ve witnessed little improvement. High tides bring in waves of garbage daily. They don’t even bother trying to keep the docks clean — the sea will just deliver every imaginable piece of garbage that’s dumped into the rivers flowing into the bay.
Manuel Batista de Moraes, who at 76 no longer goes out on the water, makes his living mending fishing nets. It’s a constant task, he says, because the trash rips nets apart.
“In the past we fished all kinds of species right here in this canal,” he says while weaving nylon strands together as dock cats prowl for fish scraps. “Now it’s just full of filth and more filth.”
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, fisherman Edmo Rodrigues da Costa hurls a weight into the water as he casts a net in Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, a bottle and wood floats with other trash in Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, trash litters the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, fisherman Edmo Rodrigues da Costa, 59, pulls planks of wood into his boat which he found floating in Guanabara bay as he made his way back to the docks after a morning of fishing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, trash floats on the water along a fence line in Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this March 3, 2015 photo, fisherman Cicero Romao Batista docks his boat at the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this March 3, 2015 photo, residents stand outside the fish market at the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, a street cat that survives on fish scraps nestles on a net being repaired by Manuel Batista de Moraes at the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, a poor catch sits in the basket of fisherman Edmo Rodrigues da Costa as he navigates his boat back to the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, Manuel Batista de Moraes repairs a fishing net as he sits at the dock, located on a canal that connects to Guanabara bay, in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this March 3, 2015 photo, a cutlassfish caught in Guanabara bay lays on a fisherman’s bike, which he planned to take home, at the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, a ship sits anchored at a shipyard in a canal off Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, fisherman Edmo Rodrigues da Costa shows a shrimp he caught in Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this March 3, 2015 photo, a fisherman repairs his net at the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this Feb. 28, 2015 photo, dead fish and trash float inside a discarded drawer in Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
In this March 3, 2015 photo, a fisherman returns to the dock in the Vila Pinheiro slum, part of the Mare complex in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
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