Dead Water Reserve Can’t Slake Sabesp Thirst Amid Drought
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Four months after Sao Paulo’s state water utility Sabesp spent 80 million reais ($33.6 million) to tap so-called dead reserves in its shrinking reservoirs, water supplies for South America’s biggest metropolis are even worse than they were before.
Brazil’s worst drought in eight decades has turned most of Cantareira, the four-lake complex that supplies half of greater Sao Paulo’s 20 million residents, into a dried-up bed of cracked earth. What’s left are sediment-filled pools in the center -- the dead reserves -- that were previously untappable until Sabesp built 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) of pipes to drain the water.