Water purity by choice.
Water scarcity by design. |
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lug!
 We are facing a water crisis. Gobar Times takes a dive and finds out why drinking bottled water and flushing gallons down the toilet won’t really help. Glug.
"Water is fundamental for life and health. The human right to water is indispensable for leading a healthy life in human dignity. It is a pre-requisite to the realization of all other human rights" - United Nations 2002
Today, over two billion people, one third of all humanity, have no access to pure drinking water. At the same time, contaminated drinking water is the reason why every other person in the developing world is ill. Only five per cent of all waste water in the world is treated.
According to the calculations of Sandra Postel, water expert with the internationally respected World Watch Institute in Washington, the demands of cities, homes, offices, stores and restaurants make up only one-tenth of the world's water consumption. The problem is that this 10 per cent must be provided to relatively small areas, where local water resources are less and less able to satisfy demand.
On a global scale, two-thirds of the water diverted from rivers or pumped out of the ground is used for agricultural applications. The thirst of burgeoning cities and booming economies can only be slaked by reallocating water from the agricultural sector. However, in many countries, this would mean that the war on hunger was lost before it could even begin. Wells and borewells by water-intensive agricultural or industrial users are destroying groundwater in large tracts of India.
Agricultural runoffs, sewage and industrial waste are contaminating fesh water sources. Ironically the bottled water industry is the result of this scarcity of clean drinking water. Wih water quality in most Indian cities being absymal, the all-India market for packaged water is growing at the rate of nearly 40 per cent per annum.
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Coming Water Stress
By 2025, more than 2.8 billion people living in 48 countries will face water stress or water scarcity, based on the recently revised United Nations population projections. By 2050 the number of countries will face water stress or scarcity will rise to 54, and their combined population to 4 billion people — 40 per cent of the projected global population of 9.4 billion.
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 America’s growing thirst for bottled water
"Bottled water costs 500 to 1,000 times more than tap water. Still, Americans consumed about 20.4 billion litres of it in 2001, creating a $6.5 billion industry" says a study done in 2001 by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Bottled water is the fastest growing beverage industry in the world, worth up to $22 billion a year, according to the Fund.
According to Beverage Marketing Corporation, the per capita consumption of bottled water in the USA has more than doubled since 1991. Ironically, while more people are drinking bottled water because of fear of pollution, this massive increase in consumption has produced a huge increase in the waste produced by the industry. The Container Recycling Institute, USA, reported that plastic bottle waste took only four years, between 1994 and 1998, to double. Every year 1.5 million tonnes of plastic are used to bottle water. Toxic chemicals can be released into the environment during the manufacture and disposal of the
bottles. Furthermore, a quarter of the 89 billion litres of water bottled worldwide annually are consumed outside their country of origin. Emissions of carbon dioxide, caused by transporting bottled water contribute to climate change.
With the help of clever marketing, the industry has entrenched the notion
deeply in consumers' minds that bottled water is supremely clean |
Some examples of interesting labels observed by the National Resources Defence Council of American bottled water, NRDC:
Spring Water (with a picture of a lake surrounded by mountains on the label) - was actually from an industrial parking lot next to a hazardous waste site.
Alaska™ - "Alaska Premium Glacier Drinking Water: Pure Glacier Water From the Last Unpolluted Frontier. Bacteria Free" - apparently came from a public water supply source. This label has since been changed after FDA intervention.
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  Tests done by the Centre for Science and Environment show deadly pesticides in most samples of ‘safe’ bottled water.
(See Down To Earth, Feb 15, 2003, Page 27)
Selling packaged water at a profit to consumers who can afford to buy it, causes more scarcity. Private companies looking to cash into the booming bottled water market often over-exploit the already depleted groundwater aquifiers.
Often coming in conflict with local communities dependent on aquifers for irrigation and drinking needs. Urban populations are ready markets for bottled water where supply is low and quality of water bad.
According to Corpwatch, in Chennai, more than 200 legal and 400 illegal water packaging units operate in the city and its surroundings. To produce one litre of an aerated drink, soft drink companies can use upto 6 to 8 litres of fresh water. Industries have privatised common groundwater resources or polluted them.
This raises a question - who has the right to own a common resource like water and profit from it? There is still no clear laws that regulate the use of groundwater in India. Water mess.
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  Earth is a wet, wet planet. There is something like 1.5 billion cubic kilometres (15,00,000 billion litres) of water on Earth. But, hold on, anyone above the age of 10 will tell you that most of this water is salty. Subtract that and even then you have something between 12,500 and 14,000 billion litres of water available for human use annually.
Also consider this: More than 110,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water rain down on the continents every year. There is enough for everyone to use. More than enough of freshwater, and more than enough to drink. The problem, as said earlier is that freshwater reserves are not uniformly distributed, and nor does this water fall uniformly over the globe.
Some have more. Some parts of the world have more than they need, while others do not have any and get very little. Rivers have their own paths, and ground water reserves are not distributed diplomatically. In India for instance, Rajasthan with 8% of the country’s population has only 1% of the water, and Bihar with 10% of the population has 5% of it.
Pipe dreams. Zings, kuls, kunds, bamboo pipelines, anicuts, johads, baolis. Rainwater harvesting structures built by people across India to get precious freshwater. And then came British with centralised pipelines. We got an unified water supply system, and the traditional systems went through a dying phase.
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Why 1.1 billion don’t have
enough to drink?
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Corruption. Anna Hazare, a social reformer from Mahahrastra, asked 425 village heads in the state about the water supply programmes in their villages. 165 replied that the projects were dead, with money siphoned off by a handful of people. Each of these projects cost some Rs 7 lakh. A tiny example of the drinking water programmes of our nation.
Price-less. The water gushing out of our taps is being provided to us almost for free. When something is free, we can use as much and in whatever way, right? On the other hand, plenty of money is needed to supply treated ‘safe’ water to us.
Digging. No water? No problem. Dig. From 65,700 diesel pumps in 1951, there are 4,360,000 today. Extraction of underground water in India exceeds recharge by a factor of two or more. Groundwater provides for about one-third of the
world's population, and is the only source of water for rural dwellers in many parts of the world. An estimated 65 per cent of public water supplies in Europe come from groundwater sources.
Bad Irrigation. Roughly 70 per cent (globally) of freshwater from rivers or underground is used for irrigation. Across the world, farmers are pumping groundwater faster than rainfall can replenish it, causing a steady drop in groundwater tables.
Urbanisation. Urbanisation means plenty of flush toilets, industrialisation and agricultural modernisation. Mega cities have millions of people in a concentrated area, and finding enough water nearby is very difficult.
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S T O P P R E S S 2 8 . 0 1 . 0 3 , B a n g a l o r e , K a r n a t a k a
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Bangalore gets water from the Cauvery: 100 km away
 Denied. Desperate.
Angry crowds break open water pipelines meant for rich
Subbayyanapalya, in the Bangalore city, is a corporation-housing area with about 1000 low-income families. This locality has been surviving on water drawn from borewells, for years. Last year’s severe drought dried up the borewells, The residents brought this problem to the notice of the city corporation and requested them to provide alternative facilities till monsoons.
On 26 January 2003, desperation for water drove the people, including angry women, to break open the government pumping mains. This they connected to some of the public taps in the area. The action was fueled by the fact that their immediate neighbours residing in the posh Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) area have access to piped water 24 hours a day.
Investigation revealed that the 3100 houses in the BDA area consume 12 million litres of water in two days. A rough estimate puts it at 1935 litres per household per day. People of Subbayyanapalya buy water in tanks at Rs 125 per tank load. Their betteroff neighbours pay a flat rate of Rs 90 per month.
Another case of the poor paying more. Despite this ‘vandalism’, there seems to be no solution in sight for these residents of India’s silicon valley. — Reported by Ramya Vishwanath, Bangalore
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Big thirsty cities
The world is fast turning predominately urban, while agriculture demands more and more for irrigation. It will be difficult for cities to meet the rising demand for freshwater. In developing countries rapid urban growth often puts tremendous pressure on antiquated, inadequate water supply systems.
For instance, between 1950 and 1980, the population of many cities in Latin America, such as Bogota, Mexico City, São Paulo, and Managua, tripled or even quadrupled. African cities like Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Lagos, and Kinshasa grew sevenfold, primarily because of a rural exodus.
In the 1990s, cities of developing countries have had to cope with about 60 million new arrivals every year. Many agencies are not equipped to manage the urban water supply, while some countries have ineffective water allocation systems that allow cities to run short of water at the same time that water resources are being used for subsidised irrigation in agriculture.
Per Capita water withdrawals for personal use (average):
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 What’s in my water?
If you suspected that the water you are drinking is not safe, probably you are right. Even while falling down as rain, water picks up small amounts of gases, ions and dust particulate matter from the atmosphere. Human add a lot of impurities to both surface and groundwater like industrial and commercial solvents, metal and acid salts, sediments, pesticides, fertilisers, and faecal matter.
 About 80 per cent of all deaths in developing countries are caused by water-related diseases. The faecal coliform count in Asia's rivers is 50 times higher than the WHO guidelines. In Latin America as a whole, only about 2 per cent of sewage receives any treatment. Groundwater has been contaminated by sewage in Mexico, Sri Lanka and many Indian cities, and the same is expected in Jakarta and Manila.
Intensive use of pesticides and fertilisers has led to chemicals being leached into freshwater supplies in many places. Nitrate pollution from excess fertiliser use is now one of the most serious water quality problems. Nitrates in drinking water have exceeded permissible levels in almost every country in Europe.
In some parts of Africa, nitrate load in groundwater is 6-8 times the standards laid down by World Health Organisation (WHO). Industries pollute our groundwater and rivers. A study of 15 Japanese cities showed that 30 per cent of all groundwater supplies are contaminated by chlorinated solvents from industry; in some cases, the solvents from spills as far as 10 km from the source of pollution. Groundwater in India is probably as bad as can be on an average.
Fluorosis due to abundance of naturally occurring fluoride-bearing minerals is seen in many states. West Bengal and Bangladesh has high levels of arsenic in their groundwater. Tamil Nadu and Gujarat faces salinity due to ingression of saline water into groundwater aquifers.
Small towns like Tirupur in Tamil Nadu and tiny villages like Bicchri in Rajasthan are paying the price for industrial pollution. Bicchri’s only source of water is a tanker sponsored by the Hindustan Zinc Ltd. Mercury contamination is very high in many states and rivers of India.
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80 per cent of all deaths in developing countries are caused by water-related diseases
 BAD WATER OR NO WATER: SAME DIFFERENCE?
Contaminated water causes:
Cholera, Typhoid, Bacillary Dysentery, Infectious Hepatitis, Giardias
Lack of water leads to unhealthy results: Scabies, Skin Sepsis and Ulcers, Yaws, Leprosy, Trachoma, Dysenteries, Ascariasis
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Free, Free, Free!!!
Are we paying the true cost of water supplied to us?
For every glass of treated ‘supply’ water that we get in India, we pay something like 0.025 paise. (To get our hands on this figure better, think about this: If you buy a 1 litre or 500 ml bottle of bottled water, you are paying 250 paise per glass. That is one glass of bottled water is equivalent in price to 10,000 glasses of municipal water!!!)
Look at the capital’s water rates: 35 paise per kilolitre (kl) for consumption up to 10 kl, and Rs 1.50 per kl for use above 20 kl. Of the total consumers, only about 30 per cent are charged according to actual meter readings. The rest are charged a flat rate where the charges are based on assumptions according to the dwellings.
If you think this is peanuts, look at what the Coca-Cola unit in Pallakad, Kerala is paying as water cess: 2.25 paise per kl for spraying and cooling, 3.00 paise per kl for domestic use, 7.50 paise per kl for processing.
As water sources decrease, the poor of the world pay a heavier price than the rich. In some cities of the world, the poor pay as much as 83 times more (in Karachi, Pakistan) and 100 times more (in Nouakchot, Mauritiana) for water from water vendors as compared to the standard price paid by those connected to municipal systems.
In Bangladesh, boiling drinking water takes up as much as 11 per cent of a family’s income. In a study done in Dehradun (reported by the Journal of the Indian Water Works Association), it was found that the average costs for the people connected to supply systems were Rs 4-5 per cubic metre (cum) while for the poor using public taps, it was Rs 40 per cum (time was valued at Rs 3.5 per hour or 80% of the minimum wage rate). In 1994, a Government of India study
revealed that out of the 20,71,569 handpumps installed through various schemes, more than 34 per cent were not functional. Similarly, 25 per cent of the piped water supply is not working. A large number of people in India are charged on a flat rate irrespective of the fact whether they actually get their full supply of water or not. These
people mainly belong to the lower income group. The supply of water does not depend on the water available in the pipes itself but on the pressure it is available at, the area where the house is located, the electricity available to pump the water and the number of illegal connections on the way. Further, leakage
accounts for 30 per cent of the water supplied in the area. According to the Delhi Jal Board, the amount of water available is so low at most times of the year that the poor paying the flat rate are paying for water which they are not consuming at all!
If in providing precious clean water to us, the cost is not incorporated, it results in wastage. "It is stunning that the poor pay more than 100 times as much for water as the rich do, and get poor quality water to boot," says Ismail Serageldin, World Bank vice president of special programs. "A direct link exists between this lack of access and a host of diseases that attack the poor in developing countries."
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''rice of 1 glass of bottled water
=
Price of 10,000 glasses of tap water''
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