Every day Alagoan Sertão residents watch the water from the São Francisco River enter the agreste and dye green the leaves on the trees that line the Alagoan Sertão Canal, located between the municipalities of Senador Rui Palmeira and São José da Tapera. The project, with the section under Odebrecht Engineering & Construction’s (OEC) responsibility, is a total of 30.47 km in length, and has just completed one of its most important phases: assembling the inverted siphon. The siphon was planned as an element to transpose crossing Riacho Grande, which has a 65 meter difference in height, guaranteeing that the water flow is continuous and by gravity.

Implementation of this phase involved lying two parallel lines of 2.4 meter diameter carbon steel pipes, each 2.8 km in length, with 2.64 km in an underground section and a further 160 meters in an aerial section supported by pillars. A total of 465 steel pipes were used, soldered on site.

The siphon installation is strategic for project planning. This milestone will enable interconnection between trapezoidal canals 40 and 41, still under construction, and allow the release of water up to kilometer 118.6 of the Sertão Canal by December, which is equivalent to 84% of the total project length.
The Sertão Canal is a development which will take water to the State of Alagoas sertão, benefiting 42 municipalities and approximately one million people. The project starts with collecting water from the São Francisco River in Delmiro Gouveia and ends in the municipality of Arapiraca, forming a 250 km course. Odebrecht Engineering & Construction is undertaking Section IV of the project that includes the section which ranges from kilometer 92.93 to kilometer 123.40.