Water-borne diseases responsible for a third of all deaths

[pfpcnews]

WWF report on water contamination: Lahore’s water supply has excess arsenic, fluorine

* Water-borne diseases responsible for a third of all deaths in Pakistan
* Experts say only 1 percent of industries treat their wastewater

Daily Times - Feb. 15, 2007

LAHORE: The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has released a report, “Pakistan’s Water at Risk”, which states that Lahore’s water supply system has a dangerously high level of arsenic and fluorine.

WWF fresh water director Hammad Naqi Khan launched the report at a press conference at the Lahore Press Club on Thursday. He said people in major cities of Punjab including Lahore, Sheikhupura, Kasur, Gujranwala, Multan and Bahawalpur are exposed to high levels of arsenic. He said an assessment of subsoil water from 14 Punjab districts had revealed that 85 percent of the samples were unfit for human consumption. He said more than two million people were drinking the polluted water. He said that the link between water quality and health risks is well established because an estimated 0.25 million children die each year in Pakistan from water-borne diseases. Khan said about 5.6 million tonnes of fertiliser and 70,000 tonnes of pesticide are used in Pakistan every year, which are contaminating ground water. He said 31 out of 107 samples of ground water had been found contaminated with pesticides.

Khan said only one percent of wastewater was treated by industries before being discharged into rivers and drains. He said major industrial contributors to water pollution were petrochemicals, paper and pulp, food processing, tanneries, refineries, textile and sugar mills. He said only three out of 100 industries using hazardous chemicals treated their waste. He said according to UNICEF reports, almost 20 to 40 percent of hospital beds in Pakistan were occupied by patients suffering from water borne diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and hepatitis. He added that these diseases were responsible for a third of all deaths in the country.

Dr Yasmeen Rashid, chairperson of Pani Pakistan, a non government organisation, said recent investigations had confirmed the excessive presence of arsenic in the tap water in many cities, including Lahore. She said arsenic was tasteless and odourless. Arsenic could be released into the environment from sources like pesticides and industrial waste, especially that of petroleum refining industries. She said arsenic could create warts on the human body and increase the risk of lung cancer, skin cancer, tumours of the bladder, kidney, liver and lungs.

Saima Khawaja from the Pakistan Environmental Law Association said that while there were many environmental laws and policies in Pakistan, they were yet to be enforced. These include the National Water Policy, National Environment Policy, Pakistan Environmental Protection Act 1997, Canal and Drainage Act 1873, Punjab Minor Canals Act 1905, Fisheries Ordinance and the Greater Lahore Water Supply Sewerage and Drainage Ordinance 1967. She said, these laws existed only on paper and the government did not seem interested in their enforcement. She said almost 60 percent of the diseases in the country were water borne. She added that nobody knew anything yet about the government’s clean drinking water programmes under which it claims to have set up 6,579 water filtration plants in the country. The government had approved a Clean Drinking Water Initiative in 2004 under which 544 water purification plants with a capacity of 2,000 gallons per hour were to be installed in each district and tehsil of the country at an estimated cost of Rs 495.5 million. However, very few of the plants had been installed yet. Ms Khawaja said the treatment of sewage and industrial effluents seemed to be a low priority with the government and about 7,200 kanals in Lahore allocated to the Water and Sanitation Authority (WASA) for wastewater treatment was lying vacant. She added that WASA was now giving that land to other organisations to be used for other purposes. WWF director general Ali Hassan Habib, Irfan Hoth of Action Pakistan and Rana Mohsin from Sungi appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take suo moto notice of the issue.

SOURCE:
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.as ... 07_pg13_10