The Maldonado Stream (''Arroyo Maldonado'') is an underground

storm sewer A storm drain, storm sewer (United Kingdom, United States, U.S. and Canada), highway drain, surface water drain/sewer (United Kingdom), or stormwater drain (Australia and New Zealand) is infrastructure designed to Drainage, drain excess rain an ...

in the city

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, that runs below

Juan B. Justo Juan Bautista Justo (June 28, 1865, in Buenos Aires – January 8, 1928, in Buenos Aires) was an Argentine physician, journalist, politician, and writer. After finishing medical school he joined the Civic Union of the Youth, later participating ...

Avenue. Originally a stream draining into the

Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (; ), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda, Colonia, Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and ...

, its length goes through 10 of the 47 barrios of the city:

Versalles Versalles is a town and municipality located in the Department of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Versalles is a town near El Dovio and Roldanillo Roldanillo is a town and municipality located in the Departments of Colombia, Department of Valle ...

Liniers Liniers is a barrio (neighborhood) of Buenos Aires on the edge of the city, centered on Rivadavia Avenue. It is also an important train station and bus hub, connecting western Gran Buenos Aires with the Buenos Aires Metro. The neighborhood dev ...

Villa Luro Villa Luro is a ''barrio'' (district) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is located near the western end of the City of Buenos Aires. The district owes its name to Dr. Pedro Luro, a prominent local physician and real-estate developer who, during the ...

Vélez Sarsfield Velez may refer to: People * Vélez (name), a Spanish surname, including a list of people with the name Places * Vélez de Benaudalla, Spain * Vélez Sársfield (barrio), Buenos Aires, Argentina * Vélez-Blanco, Spain * Vélez-Málaga, Spain * Vé ...

, Floresta, Villa Santa Rita, Villa Mitre,

Caballito Caballito (; Spanish for "little horse") is a ''barrio'' (neighborhood) of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It is the only ''barrio'' in the administrative division ''Comuna'' 6. It is located in the geographical centre of the city, limited ...

Villa Crespo Villa Crespo is a middle class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, located in the geographical center of the city. It had a population of 83,646 people in 2001, and thus currently a population density of 23,235 inhabitants/km2. Villa Crespo ...

, and

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

. The stream was one of the natural limits of the city, before the

Belgrano Belgrano may refer to: People * Joaquín Belgrano (1773–1848), an Argentine patriot * José Denis Belgrano (1844–1917), Spanish painter * Joseph Belgrano (1762–1823), Argentine military officer and politician, brother of Manuel * Manuel Be ...

and

Flores Flores is one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, a group of islands in the eastern half of Indonesia. Administratively, it forms the largest island in the East Nusa Tenggara Province. The area is 14,250 km2. Including Komodo and Rinca islands ...

neighborhoods were incorporated. It is named after the legend of , a woman who arrived with

Pedro de Mendoza Pedro de Mendoza () (c. 1487 – June 23, 1537) was a Spanish ''conquistador'', soldier and explorer, and the first ''adelantado'' of New Andalusia. Setting sail Pedro de Mendoza was born in Guadix, Grenada, part of a large noble family that ...

in 1536, and was abandoned in the plain, on the margins of the stream. The stream became a garbage dump in time, and during the rainy season became a polluted waterway made dangerous because of its overflows. The authorities decided via a municipal ordinance on August 25, 1924, to tube the stream as a final solution to all the problems that caused in a growing city, and in 1928 excavations started. The Maldonado drainage system, one of the most significant public works ever built in Buenos Aires, was designed as a part of a broader drainage system in the city; it was commissioned and designed by the state-owned ''Obras Sanitarias de la Nación'' and engineered by German firm

Siemens-Schuckert Siemens-Schuckert (or Siemens-Schuckertwerke) was a German electrical engineering company headquartered in Berlin, Erlangen and Nuremberg that was incorporated into the Siemens AG in 1966. Siemens Schuckert was founded in 1903 when Siemens & H ...

. The excavation phase required hundreds of workers and machinery. The second phase, begun in 1929, consisted of rising columns to support a gigantic slab, for which 5000 tons of

rebar Rebar (short for reinforcement bar or reinforcing bar), known when massed as reinforcing steel or steel reinforcement, is a tension device added to concrete to form ''reinforced concrete'' and reinforced masonry structures to strengthen and aid ...

, 20000 tons of

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

, 55000 tons of sand, and 70000 tons of

gravel Gravel () is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally on Earth as a result of sedimentation, sedimentary and erosion, erosive geological processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gr ...

were used. Following these tubing and drainage works completed in 1933, a large packed soil road was erected over the stream in 1934. This road was re-inaugurated on July 9, 1937, as Juan B. Justo Avenue. Persistent seasonal flooding along the northwest stretch of the former Maldonado Stream caused by drainage overflow (which affected up to 266,000 people yearly) prompted Mayor

Aníbal Ibarra Aníbal Ibarra (born March 1, 1958) is an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as mayor of Buenos Aires. Biography Ibarra was born in Lomas de Zamora, a district located in the southern region of Greater Buenos Aires. His father was a P ...

in 2005 to announce complementary drain works. Ghella, a local contractor, presented the winning bid in 2007, and work began on the alleviating tunnels the following year. The first of the two new tunnels was completed in 2011, and measured in length. Work on the second, larger tunnel began in 2010 and was completed in 2012; it measured in length, required 200,000 cubic meters (7 million cubic feet) of cement, and cost US$200 million.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maldonado Stream Rivers of Argentina Rivers of Buenos Aires Rivers of Buenos Aires Province Subterranean rivers