laced with arsenic

8/14/2019 Laced With Arsenic

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WORLDWATCHWORLDWATCH

O R L D W A T C H

N S T I T U T EWIW 1776 Massachusetts Ave., NWWashington, DC 20036www.worldwatch.org

Poisoned Watersby David H. Kinley III and Zabed Hossain

Working for a Sustainable Future

For more information about Worldwatch

Institute and its programs and publications, please

visit our website at www.worldwatch.org

Excerpted from the January/February 2003 WORLD WATCH magazine 2003 Worldwatch Institute


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Bangladesh has both too much water and not enoughof it. On the one hand, this poor and densely packednation130 million people in an area the size of New

York stateis laced with the great Ganges and Jamunarivers and countless lesser streams. Rainfall totals about

80 inches a year. The country is largely flat, and immense

tracts of floodplain become lakes during the monsoonseason. Water is nothing if not abundant.

Finding water that is safe to drink is another story,however. It has long been a constant challenge for mil-lions, especially the isolated rural poor. Now, drinking

water is the villain in what CBS television once called

WORLDWATCH January/February 200322

by David H. Kinley III and Zabed Hossain

Bangladesh, Desperately Seeking Solutions

Poisoned Waters


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January/February 2003 WORLDWATCH 23

the greatest poisoning in human history.In Nilkanda village, in the Sonargaon subdistrict

about two hours from the capital, Dhaka, housewifeMonwara Begum tells how her tragedy began to unfold.Hand pumps helped us to avoid the diseases in thepond, she says, referring to the contamination of sur-face waters by human and animal waste. But after drink-ing from the hand pump over many years, my husbandfell ill with arsenic poisoning. We use a filter system nowfor all we drink, but Im not convinced it is safe.

More than 60 percent of the wells in this subdis-

trict are contaminated with arsenic and unsafe to drink

from, explains Sayed Ershad, a development workerwho has spent the last several years grappling with thedisaster. Many people still drink the poison water fromthe wells. The alternatives cost them time and money,and people here face extreme poverty.

Across the village, a thin and listless middle-agedman sits quietly in his ramshackle bamboo and thatchhome. His skin is discolored and his hands and feet arepocked with callous-like growths, telltale signs of arseni-cosis. He continues to drink from the contaminated

well, says Ershad. He doesnt use a filter because hes

convinced he doesnt have many more days to live.

M.Rahman/UNEP/PeterArnold


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The Best of Intentions

Bangladeshs high population density and lack of sani-tation infrastructure keeps surface waters perpetuallycontaminated, and waterborne diarrheal diseases havelong been a leading cause of widespread illness and pre-mature infant death. In response, the government beganinstalling shallow tubewells (sealed pipes extendingdown into the groundwater and equipped with simplehand pumps) when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan.

Following the independence struggle and subsequentfamine in 1971, international aid agencies (UNICEF,the World Bank, the UN Development Programme) andprivate interests joined the effort. Since then severalmillion tubewells have been sunk into the shallow watertable, and hand pumps have become an icon of a bet-ter life for the rural poor. World Health Organization(WHO) reports suggest that the tubewells helped slashinfant and child mortality by half over the last 40 years.

The discovery of high concentrations of naturallyoccurring arsenic in the groundwater is thus a bitter irony.

Heavy-metal contamination was not even considered in

Bangladesh until evidence of arsenicosis began to emergein the neighboring Indian state of West Bengal in thelate 1980s. Arsenic-contaminated wells were first con-firmed in Bangladesh in 1993 and it wasnt until 2000that the first comprehensive program of well testing wascompleted, when the British Geological Survey (BGS)surveyed a sample of about 3,500 wells nationwide.

The results were shocking. Of the BGS-estimated6 to 11 million shallow tubewells in Bangladesh (thoseless than 150 meters deep), at least 1.5 million areheavily contaminated, with concentrations exceedingthe national drinking-water standard of 50 parts per bil-lion. Some 35 million people are believed to be exposedbeyond the national standard, and 57 million areexposed to arsenic concentrations above the WHOstandard of 10 parts per billion.

Local patterns of contamination and resulting sick-ness are more difficult to circumscribe. Neighboring vil-

lages and even households may be consuming wellwater with vastly different levels of contamination.Some villages with high levels of contamination do notshow much evidence of widespread arsenicosis, whichgenerally reveals itselffirst as dark spots on the skin andnodules on the palms and soles of the feet. Over 5 to10 years or more, these symptoms become more pro-nounced. In many cases, internal organs, including theliver, kidneys, and lungs, are also affected. Strong evi-dence links arsenic poisoning with cancer, but it remainsdifficult to ascertain how heavy and prolonged theexposure must be to trigger the disease.

The potential human toll in Bangladesh is thus uncer-tain, because some cancers take as long as 20 years toemerge. According to a recent report from the WHO,in parts of southern Bangladesh where arsenic concen-trations are very high, one in ten adult deaths could bedue to some form of arsenic-induced cancer of internalorgans stemming from long-term exposure. These risksfall heavily on the rural poor, who are rendered more vul-nerable to illness by malnutrition and the large volumesof water they drink. They may also ingest additionalarsenic by eating rice irrigated with poisoned water andthen boiled in it. (The relatively few city dwellers get their

water from largely arsenic-free deep aquifers.)

Getting to the Bottom of the Problem?

With almost half the countrys population under threat,it is crucial to understand the root causes and patternsof contamination. But there are other dimensions to theproblem besides the geographic distribution of arsenic.For instance, we know its not the depth of the wellalone that determines its safety now or in the future,says M. Khaliquzzaman, an environmental scientist

working with the World Bank. Moreover, tapping a deep

well may supply sufficient water for a village, but is it

Arsenic (parts per billion)

300

Bay of Bengal

IndiaIndia

200 km

The regional distribution of arsenic in groundwater in

Bangladesh. Nearly 60 million people are exposed to

arsenic concentrations above the World Health Organi-

zation standard.

IPR/35-23CBritishGeologicalSurvey.N

ERC.Allrightsreserved.


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safe and sustainable for a city of a million? Thats whatwe still don t know. And in any case it is still necessaryto find ways to quickly, cheaply, and repeatedly test

water quality in millions of specific locations.One major initiative for addressing the arsenic prob-

lem is the Bangladesh Arsenic Mitigation Water Sup-ply Project (BAMWSP), run by the government andbacked by over $35 million from the World Bank andthe Swiss Agency for International Development.Launched in 1998, BAMWSP sought to provide watersupply relief for large numbers of rural people and toenhance scientific analysis of the scope of contamina-tion. The project was deliberately set up to be inde-pendent of existing government institutions, but its workhas nevertheless been delayed by bureaucratic mis-management, lack of coordination with other water sec-tor efforts, and insufficient scientific and technicalinformation.

Finding solutions to the contamination that canbe implemented at the community level has been acomplex process, explains the former BAMWSP direc-tor, Abdul Quader Choudhary. It took nearly 30 yearsto get universal coverage of drinking water supplies usinghand pumps. Now weve identified mitigation tech-nologies that can work and are affordable by the poor.But we ve still got a long way to go in solving theproblem in a systematic way. Indeed, four years afterlaunching its project with much public relations fan-fare, the World Bank may be ending its participationin the BAMWSP. If so, nearly 80 percent of the total

project budget would be left unspent.

Technology Gap

Politics and bureaucracies aside, at least one part of theoverall problem remains technical: determining arsenicconcentrations in water at the village level. Test kits pro-duced by the U.S. drug giant Merck began to be usedto measure village well contamination in the mid-1990s, but these kits only provide a rough, and some-times misleading, measure of contamination levels.Testing and analysis of arsenic contamination is tech-

nically complex, difficult, and expensive, explains Dr.Abul Hasnat Milton, chief of the arsenic unit of theNGO Forum for Drinking Water Supply and Sanita-tion. With assistance from the Danish Embassy, Dr. Mil-tons water quality testing laboratory in Dhaka hasbecome one of the countrys most sophisticated, andhas analyzed more than 25,000 samples for the gov-ernment and aid organizations.

Unfortunately, that standard of excellence is diffi-cult to reproduce everywhere. There is still a great needto improve arsenic testing, says Mr. Khaliquzzaman.There are 26 laboratories doing tests across the coun-

try, but only a third of them are capable of delivering

results of an acceptable standard. To address thisobstacle, the WHO and the International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA) have been providing vital tech-nical help through a laboratory quality assurance pro-gram over the past two years.

Compounding uncertainties in the measurement ofarsenic levels is a lack of basic knowledge about themovement of groundwater, and the location and mobi-lization of arsenic in water supplies. The geology andhydrology of Bangladesh are very complicated due to

the nature of its underground structures, explains M.Nazrul Islam, director general of the Geological Sur-

vey of Bangladesh. Try to imagine multiple layers ofHimalayan sediments deposited over tens of millionsof years by shifting rivers, tides, and floods. The sedi-ment layer is up to 20 kilometers thick near the Bay ofBengal. Aquifer movements within these layers remainpoorly understood.

According to S.K.M. Abdullah, who chairs a nationalexpert committee advising the government, the Ben-gal Delta is more complex than the Mississippi, theRhine, or the Senegal River deltas. Its really a com-

posite of three deltas in one. We know that water older

Tubewell hand pump. The safe ones are painted green,

the dangerous ones red. But the crude tests often

used to tell one from the other yield many false results.

CourtesyDavidH.KinleyIII


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than 20,000 years is largely uncontaminated witharsenic, but you cant just drill down to a certain depthand assume it is arsenic-free.

Science, Deep and Wide

Bangladesh clearly needs more and better science foridentifying water supply solutions. Whats really calledfor is analysis of deep aquifers on a country-wide basis,says Mr. Khaliquzzaman. Because of its potential for

quickly and accurately enhancing this knowledge, iso-topic analysis can play a critical role in understandingand addressing the arsenic contamination problem.This technique takes advantage of the fact that mostelements are mixtures of isotopes distinguished by dif-fering numbers of neutrons in the atoms nuclei. Theoxygen in water, for instance, is about 98 percent O16

(atoms with 16 neutrons each), but trace amounts arein the form of O17 and O18. The isotope mixture variesin known ways, allowing water to be fingerprintedand tracked through the hydrological cycle. Isotopic

analysis can be used to determine the movement of

groundwater, where an aquifer is being recharged, howit connects and mixes with other groundwater bodies,and how vulnerable it is to contamination.

Since 1999, IAEA has been working with the WorldBanks team to deploy isotope hydrology techniquesin constructing a complete model of groundwater andaquifer dynamics and arsenic mobilization. The inves-tigators are trying to understand whether deep aquifers

will remain arsenic-free over the long term if they aredeveloped as alternative sources, and how other deep

aquifers may have been contam-inated through mixing of deepand shallow reservoirs.

Until very recently, thehydrogeological characterizationin Bangladesh was being con-ducted through multiple institu-tions and agencies using primarily

non-isotopic techniques, explainsPradeep Aggarwal, head of iso-tope hydrology for the IAEA in

Vienna, Austria. The integrationof isotope techniques has providedthe required information rapidlyand at a much lower cost thanpreviously possible. Now we areexpanding the application of iso-topic techniques countrywide.In particular, Dr. Allen Welch ofthe U.S. Geological Survey is using

isotopic and conventional tools toinvestigate deep aquifer samples inthe most heavily affected regionsof the country. The results areexpected in early 2003.

Meanwhile, the people ofBangladesh desperately need safedrinking water. The earliest

response, initiated by the United Nations Develop-ment Programme in the mid-1990s, was an emergencyinitiative covering 500 of the most heavily affected vil-lages. It screened all water sources for arsenic contam-

ination and all the villagers for arsenicosis, and conducteda community awareness program.

More recently, UNICEF has supported the coun-trys largest development NGO, the Bangladesh Rural

Advancement Committee (BRAC), and seven otherNGOs in evaluating more than 161,000 tubewells sup-plying several million people. Contaminated wells andpumps have been marked with danger-signifying redpaint. BRAC has also been field-testing low-cost watertreatment systems and supply alternatives in Sonar-gaon and eight other subdistricts. These include arsenicfiltration devices, rooftop rainwater harvesting, hand-

dug ring wells, and deep tubewells. Each technology

A young Bangladeshi man and his grandmother, both

arsenicosis victims. The symptoms can appear as early

as age 2. Arsenicosis affects millions, but victims none-

theless often experience social rejection as well as illness.

S

hehzadNoorani/Drik


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offers partial relief. Filtration systems, for example, losetheir effectiveness over time as the filtering mechanismis saturated, and the captured arsenic then must besuitably disposed of without environmental contami-nation. Deep wells that have been tested and found safeoffer an alternative source, although the associatedpiped water distribution systems are quite expensive.Catching the rain offers some promise during the wetseason, but even simple capture and storage systems areunaffordable by many villagers.

The efforts of BRAC, UNDP, and other bilateral,private, and international aid organizations are slowlymitigating this public-health calamity. But far moreextensive and effective aid will be required to find a last-

ing solution to the poisoned water and bring an endto the widespread suffering. Arsenicosis is hard todiagnose and there is no known cure or treatment, saysHan Heijnen, a WHO environmental health advisor inDhaka. We know that continuous exposure is a surecause of early death. Arsenic poisoning at the levels wereseeing in Bangladesh will take 10 or 20 years off a per-sons life, without any doubt.

Moreover, arsenic-contaminated water is not lim-ited to Bangladesh, and the scientific work now under

wayif it is allowed to continuecould be a criticalinvestment for both Bangladesh and the Asia-Pacific

region. We are only now uncovering the true extent

of arsenic poisoning in India, China, and other Asiancountries, says Heijnen. The contamination couldreach 100 million people in Asiamore than the num-bers affected by HIV-AIDS.

David H. Kinley III is a communications advisor work-ing with the Technical Co-operation Department of theIAEA in Vienna. Zabed Hossain is an environmentalresearcher in the Environment Department of BRAC inDhaka, Bangladesh.

For additional information:British Geological Survey, Arsenic Contamination of

Groundwater in Bangladesh, BGS Technical Report

WC/00/19, Vol. 1, Summary, February 2001.

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, Combating

a Deadly Menace: Early Experiences With a Commu-

nity-Based Arsenic Contamination Mitigation Project in

Bangladesh, August 2000.

Bangladeshs Arsenic Poisoning: Who Is To Blame?

UNESCO Courier, Paris, January 2001.

West Bengal & Bangladesh Arsenic Crisis Information

Centre. Website: www.bicn.com/acic/

Frequent flooding contributes to fecal contamination of

Bangladeshs rivers and streams and makes them risky

sources of potable water.

S

hehzadNoorani/PeterArnold

laced with arsenic

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