DISCHARGE CONTROL DAMS FOR TWO RIVERS IN CURITIBA, BRAZIL AIMING AT EMERGENCY PROCEDURES IN CASE OF CONTAMINATION

摘要

The city of Curitiba Metropolitan Area, in Southern Brazil, hosts about two million people spreaded around several close counties in the State of Parana. During the last years, a great number of hydraulic structures has been planned and constructed in this region, namely water and sewage treatment plants, reservoirs, pipelines, dams, etc. This paper reports a case of two small rivers, both being used as water supply to be treated and distributed to the local people, for which control flow hydraulic structures were designed. According to the Brazilian environmental law, whenever there is a contamination risk for a water source, there must be a plan and a set of counter measurements ready to be activated. A road crossing rivers is the example for this case. The two rivers that feed the Irai Water Treatment Plant (Piraquara and Irai), whose discharge is about 4 m~3/sec, have to be blocked and control flow structures devised for an occasional emergency situation, by-passing the hazardous material that otherwise would reach the water distribution system.