Controversy Engulfs Plan to Bring Water to Brazil's Arid North-east

The Brazilian army is to start work on one of Latin America's most ambitious water transfer schemes, when construction begins next month on a project to supply water to more than six million people.

The army will build a network of reservoirs and more than 430 miles of canals to transfer water from the country's third largest river to the semi-desert region in the north-east of the country.

The Rio Sao Francisco project is intended to provide irrigation water for millions of impoverished farmers and drinking water for communities in a region which has experienced more than 70 droughts in the past 150 years.

The Brazilian ministry of national integration says it will bring water to six million people, irrigate 330,0000 hectares and bring 1,300 miles of dry riverbeds back to life.

It is expected to cost $2.3bn (£1.2bn) over five years, providing little more than drought relief.

But the plan has been denounced by more than 200 social and environmental groups. Critics argue that it is ecologically and socially misguided, extravagant and aimed at promoting the reelection of the president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, next year. He is from the north-eastern state of Pernambuco.

They favour the construction of more reservoirs, cisterns, wells and aqueducts, which they say would be cheaper and more efficient than building the canals.

The army will start to build the two short canals needed to take the water from the river to two new dams next month.

The water, estimated at about 1% of the Sao Francisco's flow, will then be pumped into 435 miles of canals which are planned to irrigate the states of Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco and Paraiba.

The idea of diverting water from the 1,800 mile-long Sao Francisco to the north-east of the country has been debated in Brazil for almost 200 years, and has been promised or investigated by colonial, civil and military governments since 1858. More than $8bn has been spent on drought relief since 1988.

Critics of the project, which is not supported by the World Bank or foreign backers, do not contest the need for drought relief in the region but say this plan will be socially divisive and environmentally dubious.

"It is nonviable economically, socially and ecologically," said Roberto Malvezzi, the national coordinator of the Catholic Church's pastoral land commission.

According to Mr Malvezzi, the World Bank studied the viability of the plan and proposed a series of smaller projects to store and distribute water to the region's rural poor instead.

The area is home to many of Brazil's poorest farmers as well as large numbers of landless people, but it is doubtful whether they will directly benefit.

"About 70% of the water will be for economic use - irrigated grapes and other fruits, flowers and shrimp farming for export. Only 4% is for poor people in the scrub", said Mr Malvezzi.

Renato Cunha, the director of the Bahia Environmental Group, said: "The problem of the northeast is not the scarcity of water, but the way water is managed and that existing projects have been left unfinished. This plan is not going to solve the problem. It will only exacerbate existing conflicts over who controls land and water."

The growing opposition now includes environmentalists, scientists, community and professional associations.