Water Hits Crisis Levels Worldwide - Did you know nearly one billion people around the globe lack access to clean, safe water?

Fight for Water Hits Crisis Levels Worldwide

Films explore variety of conflicts over life-sustaining resource

VOA - Rosanne Skirble | Washington, D.C. March 22, 2011

 

"Dhaka’s Challenge" explores the limited access to safe water and adequate sanitation in one of the fastest growing cities in Asia.

Nearly one billion people around the globe lack access to clean, safe water. It's a common problem in many parts of the developing world, but its severity and human impact are not widely known, according to experts at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a Washington-based news organization.

As part of the United Nations’ annual World Water Day observance, the center is screening a slate of documentaries about international water issues at the Environmental Film Festival in Washington, D.C. The films portray a variety of conflicts over water and the efforts to protect this life-sustaining resource.

The challenge in presenting these films, says Peter Sawyer, projects coordinator at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, is to share with a wider audience the urgent issues surrounding water security.

"Our goal for this screening is to just get these issues out there," he says. "We don’t feel that they are in the public consciousness and we think that they should be and we think that they should be because they are really important."

Dhaka's challenge

In "Dhaka’s Challenge," filmmaker Stephen Sapienza explores one of the fastest growing cities in Asia. He says one-third of the 15 million people in the Bangladeshi capital live in slums, where access to safe water and adequate sanitation is limited.

"And you can see it everywhere when you are riding around in Dhaka. You see people cuing up to go to public toilets," says Sapienza. "You will see hanging toilets where people will actually defecate on the top of an open river or creek."

It’s a sanitation disaster at the heart of this year’s World Water Day theme - Water for Cities. Each year 400,000 newcomers join Dhaka’s urban poor, putting pressure on its already crowded slums. City water from Dhaka’s Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) comes at a price, available only to land owners. The film documents how a non-profit group helped change the law to give the same water privileges to the urban poor.

Diabalok Sing Ha is the group’s founder. "A win-win situation actually occurred because Dhaka WASA, they wanted their revenues and on the other hand, poor people, they wanted the service and they immediately see the economic advantage of getting access to Dhaka WASA water supply because that is cheap in comparison to the private market, so they immediately buy in."

Sapienza says more groups are seeking those rights, an effort that has already begun to scale up in Bangladesh and could become a model in other parts of the world.

"My story was just trying to point out that these problems are solvable on some level even if you have to start small and it’s possible in the long run to save many, many lives."

Flood damage

A second Pulitzer Center-sponsored film is focused on Pakistan. Floods in 2010 covered one-fifth of the country, claiming 1,600 lives and destroying towns and farmland.

"Water Scarcity on the Indus River," directed by Fred de Sam Lazaro, journeys to Pakistan’s northern border with Afghanistan, where aid worker Maqsood Alam helps restore flood-damaged farms and irrigation canals for the half-million local people who depend on them.

In a place better known for militant extremists, Alam says his major problem has been putting a lot of farmers back to work.
"Farm families that have (this) subsistence kind of agriculture, they have lost their source of income generation."

That recovery will take time, says Pakistan water activist, Simi Kamal. "Really to help these people get back on the land, help them stay away from diseases as much as they can, help them with their own food needs, help get the kids to school, you know, help them get over this winter."

The film also explores the irony that Pakistan is laced by rivers fed by the melting glaciers of the Himalayan Mountains, but suffers from chronic shortages because water distribution is managed so poorly, and complicated by disputes with neighboring India.

China lake

Water scarcity affects one-in-three people on every continent, according to the World Health Organization. A third Pulitzer Center-supported film documents how China’s second largest fresh water lake has shrunk by half since the 1940s. Dongting Hu Lake is used to quench the thirst of local communities while also meeting the competing demands of farms and factories. Increasing levels of silt from economic development are diminishing the lake even further.

"It’s true that fish are less and less," says Chinese ecologist Jiang Yong. "There are several reasons. First, the demand for fish has become greater. The population is growing and there are more and more people around the city. They love to make fish and make several dishes. People have a conception that eating fish is a must when you come to Dongting."

Yong adds that awareness of environmental protection is not enough. People need to find a way to live with the lake and not over-exploit it, if the lake is to survive.

US water fight

In the southeastern United States, people in three states have been squabbling for the past 20 years over access to the waters of the Chattahoochee River. The documentary "Chattahoochee: From Water War to Water Vision" takes viewers along that winding river - through Georgia, Alabama and Florida - to meet the people whose livelihoods depend on it.  Producer Jonathan Wickham says the solution to competing urban, agricultural and business needs will require a new way of thinking about the shared resource.

"And if you live upstream, that means you can make reasonable use of the water supply as long as you don’t deprive your neighbors downstream," says Wickham.

The 52,000-square-kilometer watershed serves six million people - from Gulf of Mexico oystermen to the 3.5 million residents of metropolitan Atlanta. The city is currently facing a court order to share local water resources with neighboring counties which could cut the city’s supply in half.

Katherine Bliss, director of the water project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says what this story and the others from around the world have in common is that solving these complicated water problems requires that people become educated and engaged.

"I think each of the films, by highlighting the human struggles, relates not only to the kind of negotiations they are talking about, but education and awareness, conservation and promoting a greater understanding of the fact that water is a shared resource."

 

Fight for Water Hits Crisis Levels Worldwide

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World Water Day

SAF Settlement Residents Struggle as World Marks Water Day
VOA - Scott Bobb | Makausie Settlement (near Johannesburg) March 17, 2011

Photo: VOA Photo S. Bobb Emily Ntake pumps water in South Africa's Makause community.

The international community is marking World Water Day this year under the theme of water and urbanization - noting that for the first time in history, more than one-half of the world's population now lives in cities. In Africa, which has the highest urbanization rate in the world, 70 percent of city dwellers live in slums or shantytowns, often called informal settlements.

It is early morning in Makause, a sprawling settlement of shacks made mostly of tin and wood, sitting on an old mining ridge outside Johannesburg.

Makause's 12,000 residents do not have running water, so every day they must fill their buckets at communal taps. The city has installed two of these at the edge of the community.

The settlement emerged more than 20 years ago after the gold mine beneath it shut down. The owners now want to earn income from the land by using it for housing developments or light industry.

Four years ago, hundreds of people were forcibly evicted from a strip of land in the middle of the settlement. Their shacks destroyed, they were forced to move 40 kilometers outside the city. With no jobs or services there, many returned.

Emily Ntake has been living here with her small son for two years while she looks for a job. She says because the city water taps are so far away, she uses one of 17 illegal taps built by neighbors.

"We've got a problem of water here. It's got to come. So we need more taps so that we can have water," said Ntake.

Makause residents also have no public electricity. A few businesses operate using generators.

There is also no public sanitation. Residents dig pit latrines in their yards and enclose them for privacy. When the pit fills up, they cover it with dirt and dig another.

Following the end of apartheid 17 years ago, the black-led government embarked on an ambitious program to deliver basic services to its poor. It built more than one million low-income houses and brought public water, electricity and sanitation to millions of people.

But a large portion of the population of nearly 50 million still lives without public utilities.

After years of waiting, frustrated residents here organized the Makause Settlement Development Forum to press for housing and basic services.

Ndawoyakhe Mpambo is the forum's chairman and he says all we are getting from the government is just promises, since we started voting 17 years ago. Every time there is an election, he says, the politicians come here promising a lot but we don't see it.

There are frequent demonstrations, sometimes violent, across South Africa by residents of informal settlements demanding housing and public services.

Professor Marie Huchzermeyer of Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University says the riots are about more than the lack of services.

"These delays, combined with broken promises," said Huchzermeyer. "And then it's another year, and another year, and another year, and more excuses coming from the municipality. And that really causes huge dissatisfaction and a strong sense that they're not being heard."

Lawsuits in a few cases have led the courts to order local authorities to provide the services, which are guaranteed under South Africa's constitution. But implementation has been slow.

City planners say it is difficult to bring pipes into communities where crooked footpaths are the norm rather than grid-like streets.

Some countries, most notably Brazil, have adopted a policy of providing services to residents of informal settlements rather than waiting until they can build them proper houses.

The South African government recently promised to do the same for 400,000 people in informal settlements within three years. But Huchzermeyer says local governments are reluctant to bring city services to such communities.

"There is this mindset that if you improve informal settlements by giving them water and sanitation you are rewarding them and more people will then follow suit and do the same in order to access water and services and ultimately housing," added Huchzermeyer.

She says governments want to make their cities more attractive to investors and see the settlements as eyesores. As a result, many like her believe it will take considerable social pressure to improve the lives of people like the residents of Makause.





SAF Settlement Residents Struggle as World Marks Water Day
Article and video from VOA

Chromium-6, Carcinogen Found in US Tap Water

Carcinogen Found in US Tap Water

Zulima Palacio | Washington January 28, 2011- VOA

In the movie Erin Brockovich, Julia Roberts played a California woman on a mission against a local company accused of leaking the metal chromium-6 into ground water, allegedly causing cancer in 600 people.  The movie was based on a real story. The more than $300 million settlement was one of the largest ever in the United States.

Fifteen years later, test results by an environmental group produced shocking results about tap water across the country.   

In the study by the Environmental Working Group, 31 out of 35 cities showed various levels of Chromium-6, considered a carcinogen, in drinking water.  

Olga Naidenko is the Senior Scientist at the Environmental Working Group

"Our study was a snapshot which demonstrated that Chromium pollution in drinking water is widespread across the US," said Olga Naidenko is the Senior Scientist at the Environmental Working Group.  "Washington was 9 times higher than what California state scientists think is safe."

The Washington Aqueduct, owned and operated by the US government, provides potable water for a million people in the Washington DC region. Thomas Jacobus is General Manager.  He says the Aqueduct did not test specifically for Chromium-6. But once the tests were done, he says, the levels were low.

"The cost to remove chromium, half of a part per billion, would be staggering and the question is, is that practical and is that necessary?" asked Jacobus.

The Aqueduct runs tests for bacteria and contaminants. It regularly checks for 22 metals, but not chromium.  Jacobus says he is confident the water is safe.

Chromium-6 is a naturally occurring metal. Chromium pollution most commonly comes from mining and other industrial processes.  

"It has been released into water because industries didn't care," said Naidenko.  "They don't do it on purpose, but for example they store industrial waste water in unlined pools, basically just dump it outside, that is how it often ended up in water."

Naidenko says 15 years after the California case, the Environmental group found similar levels of chromium-6 in other parts of the country.

"The highest sample of our study was actually within the range that Ms. Brockovich detected in Hinkley, California in a highly polluted area," added Naidenko.

Washington Aqueduct says much can happen as water travels to the consumer.  Jacobus says old pipes and fixtures can leach metals.  He says water treatment facilities were never designed to remove chemicals that are now showing up.

"Right now, I think it means we need to keep looking and be aware that there may be some things that we don't know," added Jacobus.

Toxic chemicals are showing up in water around the world.  Naidenko says in China, Greece and Scotland people have suffered from stomach cancers she says are linked to polluted water.

"We are not aware of studies that systematically analyze chromium in other countries, but reports from individual countries indicating chromium pollution is fairly common," noted Naidenko.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has now ordered utilities around the US to test for chromium-6 twice a year. EPA has also begun a review of the impact of chromium-6 to determine safe levels in drinking water.

Carcinogen Found in US Tap Water - article about tap water from VOA