Few human constructs are as innately graceful and pleasing as
bridges. Literally and metaphorically, they connect us. Yet natives
of Chiloé,
an island the size of Puerto Rico off the coast of southern Chile,
wonder lately if there may be such a thing as too much connection.
Isolated from the mainland by a turbulent channel, Chiloé
developed its own proud culture, whose music, myths, and charming
architecture today entice thousands of tourists each summer. However,
Chile's government now wants to celebrate its 2010 bicentennial
by building the longest bridge in Latin America, joining Chiloé
to the continent. Many islanders fear this would replace the romantic
sea change that visitors undergo during the twenty-minute ferry
passage with a non-eventful, three-minute car ride.
Worse, they claim, it would also end their uniqueness. They reject
the rationale that a bridge means they'll now have quicker access
to emergency medical services on the mainland, arguing that it
would be far cheaper simply to build Chiloé a decent hospital.
The real reason for turning their island into a peninsula, they
say, is development: The government has proclaimed that the bridge
will make Chiloé the gateway to vast, hitherto inaccessible
stretches of southern Chile, to extract lumber—and,
especially, to cultivate an exotic fish.
Floating
salmon platform at Castro, Chiloé.
Chile, which has no native salmon, is now the world's second biggest
salmon producer; with this bridge it could become number one. Marine
biologists, already worried over the environmental strains of intensive
fish farming, have further doubts about turning Chile's entire southern
coast into a giant salmon factory. Local stocks of sardines, mackerel,
and anchovies used to make feed for farmed salmon, they warn, are
already dangerously overdrawn. What, they ask, is the sense of building
more fish farms, if there's nothing left to feed them?
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos has promised that no public funds
will be spent on the bridge. Instead, the first forty years' toll
revenues will go to the bridge's private financiers. Industry projections,
however, suggest that tolls could take more than a century to recoup
construction costs, so no one is yet willing to undertake the $300
million project without guaranteed government subsidies. In turn,
President Lagos, a former Minister of Public Works who won't abandon
the dream for this grand national monument, keeps postponing the
construction bidding until a financing plan emerges.
Opponents say that a bridge makes no cultural, fiscal, or ecological
sense—that it no longer symbolizes connection, but a profound
disconnect between human pride and human wisdom. Yet many fear the
president will renege on his promise not to subsidize, and build
it anyway. Chiloé lore tells how local mythic spirits have
dealt with hubris in the past: vanquishing the perpetrators with
the likes of floods and earthquakes. In such an act of revenge,
a legendary sea serpent named Quaiquaí originally separated
Chiloé from the mainland. Since the bridge, if built, will
be anchored to a notoriously unstable sea bottom, a question heard
on Chiloé these days is: Might Quaiquaí strike again?
Listen
in Spanish
