On December 31st, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to join the New Year's Eve festivities at Boca do Rio beach, where famous artists like Ivete Sangalo, Alok and Wesley Safadão will perform for long after midnight.
But whoever is considering following the Brazilian tradition of jumping seven waves at sea at the stroke of midnight better think twice: Boca do Rio has the worst water quality in the whole state of Bahia.
Located at the Rio das Pedras mouth, a river that receives daily discharges from rain sewers as well as raw sewage from clandestine pipes, Boca do Rio can have a fecal coliform concentration of up to 16,000 in 100 milliliters of water.
A beach is considered suitable for swimming when it has less than a thousand fecal coliforms in 100 milliliters of water in the week when it was tested and in the previous four weeks.
Translated by NATASHA MADOV