The call for a public hearing by the National Agency of Ports and Waterways (ANPyN) sets in motion one of the most sensitive—and delayed—steps of the process that will define the future of the fluvial corridor through which more than 80% of Argentina’s foreign trade flows.
This necessary starting point to technically and legally structure the debate is also a minefield of economic interests, political factions, and suitable (and functional) environmental proposals. And, on top of all this “cooking base,” the structural dilemma of national logistics must be “deglazed”: the search for maximum efficiency, the exercise of absolute control, and the recovery of a legitimacy called into question, if not lost.
Dispersed Stages, Unified
The call comes after a regulatory chain that started with decree /2020, went through the transfers of competency from Transport to Economy, the dissolution of the General Port Administration (AGP), and the creation of the ANPyN as an autonomous entity.
The resolution, besides complying with the General Environment Law, reconstructs a line of institutional continuity that had been fragmented among decrees, extensions, and transitions. The typical Argentine regulatory zigzagging.
The agency explicitly recognizes that the hearing will precede the new national and international call for tenders for the modernization, dredging, beaconing, and comprehensive maintenance of the VNT, in accordance with the mandate of decree /2024. In other words: before re-tendering the Waterway, the State must close—and make transparent—its environmental balance sheet.
From Control to Management
The call, in its annex 1, adds the “2025 Management and Environmental Assessment Report.” It is not a diagnosis but an operational X-ray of the system under state administration (remember that the State is the concessionaire that contracts the dredging and signaling works to the “former concessionaires”).
The report brings together water and sediment monitoring, management files, and audits on the environmental plans currently in force in the Santa Fe–Ocean and Santa Fe–Confluence sections, and highlights a demand from the private sector, such as the unification of criteria in the evaluation of dredging, re-dredging, signaling, and hydrological control tasks. This should facilitate the traceability of impacts and avoid regulatory overlaps between jurisdictions.
Axis and Content
The central axis of the report lies in the monitoring of the Environmental Management Plans (PGA), which cover dredging, signaling, the hydrometeorological network, and general maintenance.
Technical reports certify that contractors report their actions monthly and that no significant negative effects were detected.
It is emphasized that this is not an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) —since the work is already underway— but rather a review of the environmental compliance of ongoing activities.
The monitoring is supported by a system of 29 Environmental Management Sheets (FGA) —documents that identify impacts, involved actors, and mitigation measures per section— and by an expanded network of 136 water and sediment sampling stations distributed between Confluencia and the Río de la Plata, a device that allows for continuous environmental quality control and a permanent update of the PGA.
In its final chapter, the report concludes that the VNT operates under parameters compatible with the General Environment Law (25.675) and the principles of prevention, precaution, and sustainability. River navigation, it notes, also contributes to the reduction of emissions compared to land transport, consolidating its strategic role in national logistics.
Transparency and legitimacy
In its political reading, the report also seeks to show that the State not only “controls” but also “manages.” In the language of the new administration, this means moving from fragmented supervision to a model of active environmental governance.
A marginal digression: the environmental universe is the Damocles’ sword of every infrastructure project between the river and its banks. Several projects have been delayed, or decapitated, by this law.
It is to be hoped that the hearing process will be orderly, and not a new, false cultural battle between environment (politics) and logistical development.
