( AP ) - Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed work to go ahead - at least temporarily - on a major river diversion, reportedly prompting a Roman Catholic bishop on a hunger strike against the project to pass out.
The judges voted 6-3 to lift a lower court injunction that forced the government to stop work last week on a $2 billion project to divert the Sao Francisco river, Brazil's fourth largest, as part of plan to irrigate the country's arid northeast.
The lower court found irregularities in the process for approving the dam, but the Supreme Court ruled that going ahead with the project now would not cause irreversible environmental damage, said a court spokeswoman who declined to be identified.
The decision, however, only allows work to go ahead until the Supreme Court can judge the merits of the case at a date yet to be set.
Neither decision mentioned Bishop Luiz Flavio Cappio, who is on the 23rd day of a hunger strike to stop work on the project which he and other critics say will seriously damage the environment and principally benefit large agribusiness interests and builders.
Rubens Siqueira of the Catholic Church's Land Pastoral, who is with Cappio, said the bishop "was very upset by the decision and when he was working on a statement, he said he wasn't feeling well and fainted."
Siqueira said Cappio has since been revived and would issue a statement shortly.
Cappio has said he was prepared to die if the government does not permanently stop work on the project.
But as the 61-year-old bishop's health has began to deteriorate - he has lost 20 pounds so far - there are signs the hunger strike may be drawing to a close.
His representatives have began negotiating with the government and both the Vatican and the Council of Brazilian Bishops have called on him to stop his hunger strike.
National Integration Minister Geddel Veira Lima told reporters in Brasilia that work on the project would go ahead regardless of Cappio's protests.