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Arsenic
Contamination in Nepal |
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No effective cure is known for
the chronic arsenicism, which is the direct effect of contaminated
drinking water, especially not in a poor country like Nepal. The
only durable advice is to cease consuming the poisoned water
immediately.
Contaminated drinking water
Water
is the most essential element for all beings and plays a vital
role for the entire life cycle on our mutual planet. Life needs
water. Human beings need safe drinking water. Thus
presence of unwanted contaminants in drinking water makes it
unacceptable to drink for humans from both an aesthetic and a
health aspect, and can have severe implications for all life
forms. In order to be used as a healthful fluid for human
consumption, water must be free from organisms that are capable of
causing a number of diseases and from minerals and organic
constituents that produces various, adverse physiological
health
effects. Hence we have in the later years witnessed a
justified raising demand for safe drinking water in
the World, and today this is by most organizations regarded as a
Human Right.
Unfortunately water is a universal solvent, which can dissolve a
variety of solids. None known solvent can dissolve the same number
of different substances as water. Such dissolutions of myriad of
solids cause the contamination of the water by various harmful
contaminants. One of the substances that water can dissolve is
chemical combinations of the element Arsenic.
Arsenic kills
Arsenic is
considered as one of the oldest, most dangerous poisons, and is a
well-defined contaminant, which has various acute and chronic
health effects on the human health. Only 60 milligram of arsenic
can kill an adult person instantly. Arsenic is a shiny metalloid,
but dissolved in water or on gaseous form, humans cannot detect
its presence before it is too late. We cannot see, taste nor
smell, whether the water we drink is contaminated with Arsenic
compounds. We can however feel it, since Arsenic compounds
severely damages human health, and the sight of its effects is not
pleasant.
Into
the fire
Due to
an assumed reduction of the microbiological contamination of the
drinking water in developing countries, most stakeholders
recommended and started to construct tube wells in rural areas to
improve the microbiological contamination. On a worldwide scale
these wells and hand pumps are constructed in a variety of ways
and extract groundwater from aquifers in different depths.
Similarly, private persons have the last two decades constructed
millions of such tube wells. The improvement of the bacterial
contamination have been shown to be questionable, since many tube
wells in the third world are not constructed correctly, and
furthermore the last ten years have shown, that some aquifers are
chemically contaminated with for example Fluoride and Arsenic.
Especially in South East Asia - Bangladesh, West Bengal and now
also the lowlands of Nepal, the Arsenic concentration in the
pumped "drinking" water have shown to be of such a magnitude that
the population in these areas, by switching from surface water to
groundwater, can be said to have come from the frying-pan into the
fire. Millions will in the future develop a slowly killing cancer
in the internal organs due to unhealthy Arsenic concentrations.
Relative to the Arsenic crisis the microbiological contamination
of drinking water can be said to be acute or instantly, whereas
the effect of the former develops over periods up to thirty years
and hence can be referred to as chronic. This fact can give some
financial and awareness type of problems, since an effective
mitigation of the Arsenic contamination will only be seen after
several years.
Nepal overtakes Bangladesh
Cancer from arsenic sufferer in Bangladesh Photo: Wilson |
Lately measurements in the
affected areas of
Nepal have revealed concentrations almost double the highest
measured in Bangladesh. Until now Bangladesh was the country which
worldwide was believed to be the worst influenced. Furthermore
initial measurements the last two years in Nepal have shown that
the average percentage of the contaminated wells is rising with
the number of wells measured. Today less than 5 percent of all
wells in Nepal have been measured. Hence the actual number of
arsenic contaminated tube wells in Nepal is still unknown.
A matter of mathematics
By mathematical calculations and predictions
based on several factor like the Nepali migration towards the
lowlands, the population increase, the risk analysis, and the
rising number with access to groundwater. the Arsenic calamity can
be shown in future to reach similar levels of death rates in Nepal
as the microbiological contamination. The numbers can be turned if
effective measuring programs combined with a throughout
information campaign and a subsequent mitigation program is
started immediately and "finished" within few years.
Investigations in Goini Nawalparesi Photo Kim Adamsen
If such
effective programs are not initiated at once, large
numbers of the population will inevitability suffer, and since the
mitigation effect is delayed up to thirty years, Nepal may reach a
point, where the death rate curves, due to this problem, will be
impossible or very difficult to bend.
By Anil Pokhrel, head of technical section of NEWAH & Kim Rud
Adamsen, hydrology adviser of NEWAH
A detailed report titled "The Arsenic Contamination
of the Drinking Water in Nepal" has been produced by the authors
of this article. It is available for download in MS Word format.
Download
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