China: US$ 27 billion for safe water for all rural areas by 2015

Photo: Ministry of Water Resources

Everyone in rural areas will have access to safe drinking sources by 2015, reaffirmed China’s minister of water resources Chen Lei. He was speaking on 25 April 2012 at a bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee.

Chen Lei, minister of water resources. Photo: China Daily

At the session, the minister presented at report on rural water resources, which stated that government would prioritise piped water systems, including the extension of urban water supply networks to rural areas.

Tuvalu: composting toilets help conserve water and boost livelihoods in Pacific islands

A new film shows how composting toilets are helping to address the serious water issues facing Tuvalu.

The tiny Pacific island nation of just 10,500 inhabitants recently experienced a devastating drought. Septic tank systems are polluting the groundwater and destroying the reefs in lagoons, forcing fishermen to spend more on fuel to travel further away to catch fish.

The Global Environment Facility supported Pacific Integrated Water Resources Management project (GEF Pacific IWRM) is addressing these problems by installing composting toilets on the main island of Funafuti. Composting toilets use almost no water and produce compost so that families can plant their own vegetables, making them less dependent on expensive food imports.

Getting people to adopt composting toilets was difficult, but once people understood the benefits, demand for the toilets increased. The project in Tuvalu has generated interest around the Pacific. Tonga has built demonstration toilets, Nauru has installed them in schools and the Marshall Islands are planning construction soon, the project web site says.

The GEF Pacific IWRM project is managing 13 national demonstration projects in 12 Pacific countries. It is being executed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC), in partnership with UNDP and UNEP.

Related news:

• Sharing experiences : sustainable sanitation in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, E-Source, 28 Oct 2010
• Tuvalu: state of emergency declared due to water shortages, WASH news Asia & Pacific, 17 Oct 2011

Related web sites:

• GEF Pacific IWRM Project
• Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA)
• IRC WASH Library: composting latrines

Source: GEF Pacific IWRM Project, 05 Mar 2012

India, West Bengal: youth have brittle bones from arsenic poisoning, army stops staffing

Arsenic affected patients from West Bengal. Photo: SOES

Bone deformities due to arsenic poisoning of groundwater are common among the youth in Bengal, the Indian army has found. Less than 100 youths among the 2,000 who turned up for an army recruitment drive in February 2012, passed the physical test.

“We had 200 vacancies, but we could not even fill even 50% of the posts,” said group captain TK Singha, chief public relations officer, ministry of defence. “Most of the students failed the basic medical test because of defects in bone structure,” said an officer. “This was not visible by the naked eye, nor did it affect normal life.” [...] “We found out most of the candidates came from arsenic affected regions of Bengal, and drink water from hand pumps”.

Arsenic contamination of groundwater in West Bengal was detected more than 30 years ago, according Sudarshan Niyogi, professor of chemical engineering at IIT-Kharagpur.

“Arsenic can affect any organ, including bones, causing deformity, brittleness and degeneration”.

For more on arsenic poisoning in West Bengal see the web site of the School of Environmental Studies (SOES), Jadavpur University.

Source: Hindustan Times, 18 Mat 2012

Bangladesh: natural sediment may shield groundwater from arsenic

Contamination of deep groundwater with arsenic from shallower sources may not be as serious as feared — if pumping deep water is limited to domestic use, a study has found.

Exposure to arsenic-contaminated groundwater has been linked to almost one in every five deaths in Bangladesh, and some 100,000 deep wells have been constructed to pump deeper, cleaner water. Recent modelling studies have suggested that these cleaner water sources are also being contaminated — from shallower water seeping down to replenish deeper wells.

But a study published in Nature Geoscience [doi: 10.1038/ngeo1283] found that natural adsorption of arsenic by sediment — sand in the aquifers — reduces contamination risk in most areas.

The study was conducted as part of the Columbia University Superfund Research Program on the “Health Effects and Geochemistry of Arsenic and Manganese“.

Read more [Syful Islam, SciDev.Net, 10 Oct 2011]

China, Hangzhou: chemical spills taints city’s water supply, schools closed

Two separate pollution incidents have hit the drinking water supply of the Chinese city of Hangzhou (pop. 9 million), Zhejiang Province, in the beginning of June 2011.

In the first incident, the drinking water supply of more than half a million people was cut off when phenol (carbolic acid) spilled into the Xin’an river, creating a run on bottled water. A tanker truck carrying 20 tons of phenol, which had broken down, was hit by another truck as it was being repaired. The crash ruptured the tanker truck’s chemical tank and the leaked phenol was washed by rain into the river, which is one of the sources of Hangzhou’s drinking water.

Authorities temporarily shut down water plants and released extra water from nearby dams to dilute the spill. The concentration of carbolic acid near the accident site remained at more than 900 times the safe drinking level. Despite reassurances that drinking water in Hangzhou itself was safe, residents rushed to buy bottled water, leaving shelves in some supermarkets empty.

China: animal waste a threat to clean water supply

The massive increase of animal waste coming from the livestock industry has become a main source of water pollution in the country, environmental researchers have warned.

One measure China is introducing to reduce the pollution is through the construction of 80 million household methane digesters and 10,000 large-scale biogas plants by 2020.

Citing China’s first national census of pollution sources released in February [2010], Zhang Qingfeng, a leading water resources management expert at the Asian Development Bank, said agriculture is responsible for up to 67 percent of the 423,200 tons of phosphorus discharged and 57 percent of the 4.7 million tons of nitrogen discharged into water.

China: facing up to groundwater crisis

Researchers call for effective monitoring and management of water resources.

A crisis is developing beneath China’s thirsty farms and cities, but no one knows its full extent. With about 20% of the world’s population but only about 5–7% of global freshwater resources, China draws heavily on groundwater. Those reserves are being depleted at an alarming rate in some regions and are badly polluted in many others, warned experts last week at the International Groundwater Forum 2010 conference in Beijing.

Nepal, Kathmandu Valley: one-fourth of bottled water ‘contaminated’

Bottled-water, which until a few years ago, was regarded a luxury is now a common sight in Nepali households, thanks to heightening shortage of potable water. However, the fast growing bottled-water industry is highly unregulated as studies have showed that one-fourth of the bottled water distributed in the market is contaminated.

Pramod Koirala, senior food research officer at Department of Food Technology and Quality Control (DFTQC), said as much as 25 percent of bottled-water companies based in the Kathmandu Valley have been flouting the standards set by the department.

“We tested samples of bottled-waster distributed by 37 companies in the last four months and found that the products of 10 companies were contaminated,” Koirala said, adding, “This shows that the companies are flouting the standard set by the government.”

DFTQC has filed cases against the 10 companies at concerned district administration offices, Koirala said.

The mushrooming of bottled-water companies in every nook and corner of the Valley has not only made it difficult for consumers to differentiate between clean and contaminated bottled-water but also has created fertile ground for unhealthy competition.

Koirala said small-scale companies with little investment and no technical expertise are making things worse, as they are the ones that bottle contaminated water.

The study report prepared by DFTQC states that most of the companies bottle water brought from nearby water sources with negligible or no chemical treatment.

The Valley consumes a total of 900,000 liters of bottled-water in a day, according to Nepal Bottled-water Industries Association (NBWIA).

Though the question on cleanliness and hygiene of bottled-water is doing rounds, bottled-water companies are cashing on the water shortage and selling thousands of liters of bottled-water everyday. The price of water jars (with 20 liters capacity) varies from as low as Rs 35 [US$ 0.46] to as high as Rs 80 [US$ 1.06] per jar.

“It is the unmanaged growth and growing competition among bottled-water companies that has been inviting unhealthy competition in this industry,” Rabin Shrestha, general manager of Aqua 100 – one of the leading bottled-water brands – told myrepublica.com. “Unless and until a perfect inspecting mechanism is put in place, the companies will continue to cheat consumers.”

Shrestha said consumers should be aware of the fact that bottled-water does not necessarily mean that the water is pure and hygienic.

About 300 bottled-water companies are registered with various government agencies, including Nepal Food Corporation and Department of Commerce. The industry directly employs more than 6,000 persons, according to Nepal Bottled-water Industries Association.

“Apart from these registered companies, numerous other companies are operating illegally,” Nabin Kumar Karki of Nepal Bottled-water Industries Association said.

Source: Republica, 10 Jul 2010

India, Bhopal: gas tragedy has nothing to do with pollution at site, says NEERI

The contamination of soil and groundwater at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal has nothing to do with the 1984 gas leak disaster, according to a study released on [08 July 2010] by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). Instead, the toxic wastes were dumped over a much longer period between 1969 and 1984.

NEERI’s presentation to the Group of Ministers last month made it clear that “Union Carbide’s Bhopal plant was a polluter long before the 1984 gas leak disaster,” as reported by The Hindu. In its final report, NEERI has re-emphasised this fact, correcting common perceptions.

“During the study, it appeared that there is a general misunderstanding among the public as well as various agencies and organisations that the MIC gas tragedy in 1984 also resulted in contamination of soil and groundwater on and around UCIL premises,” says the final NEERI report.

“However, it may be made clear that contamination of soil and groundwater on and around the UCIL premises is solely due to dumping of the above mentioned wastes during 1969 to 1984, and the MIC gas tragedy has no relevance to it.”

The report says “the solid, semi-solid, liquid and tarry wastes generated during the manufacture of pesticides and associated chemicals were dumped by UCIL on its premises from 1969-1984,” which raises the question how regulators turned a blind eye to the problem for 15 years.

NEERI’s recommendations in the report echo what the agency told the GoM, and was subsequently accepted by the Union Cabinet. As immediate measures, it recommended that the incinerable wastes be burnt at the Pithampur facility, while the 1.1 million tonnes of contaminated soil be buried in a landfill at the site itself. The five contaminated wells should be sealed and the company premises fenced and secured properly to prevent unauthorised access, said the report. In the long term, the contaminated groundwater needs to be pumped and treated.

It put the total cost of soil remediation at Rs. 78 crore to Rs. 117 crore, while the capital cost for the pump and treat unit was pegged in the range of Rs. 25 lakh to Rs. 30 lakh. The operating and maintenance cost of the unit would range between Rs. 10 lakh and Rs. 15 lakh per annum, including the cost of activated carbon and its disposal.

The Indian Institute of Chemical Technology has also framed the tender for the detoxification, decommissioning and dismantling of the Union Carbide plant itself.

Source: The Hindu, 09 Jul 2010

China: Algae outbreak in major lake threatens drinking water for 300,000

A green algae outbreak has been reported in China’s fifth-largest freshwater lake, threatening the drinking water source for 300,000 residents in an eastern city.

Three to four square km of green algae were found on the east part of Chaohu Lake, the water source for Chaohu city, Su Huimin, chief of Chaohu municipal environment protection bureau, said Thursday [08 July 2010].

“Hot weather and flood discharge from the more polluted western Chaohu

Lake have led to the algae outbreak,” said Su.

Su told Xinhua that the drinking water supply for local residents has not been affected so far, but the green algae was close to the city’s drinking water source.

“We will now test the water quality every two hours, instead of every four hours as before,” said Tang Xiaoxian, director of the local environment monitoring center.

Tang added that local authorities have beefed up monitoring of the green algae and also sent boats to clear it.

Covering an area of 13,000 square km, Chaohu suffers from severe environmental pollution, with lake embankments destroyed and wetland damaged during the urbanization and industrialization drives in the province.

In 2007, an algae outbreak in China’s third-largest freshwater lake, Taihu, cut tap water supplies for more than 1 million people in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province for about 10 days.

Source: Bi Mingxin, Xinhua, 08 Jul 2010