15th July 2003
From
Dr. Meera M Hira Smith:
In
response to Mr. Mokhlesur Rahman - "Providing safe water to school
children - LGED" and Dr. Iqbal Zuberi - "Arsenic crisis in
Bangladesh: good news + bad news = very bad news?"
Future of the
tube wells: The 15,000 tube wells, depending on their depth, may
get contaminated with arsenic within one year followed by installation of
filters to remove the arsenic in the water. Within the following year,
these filters will be labeled as "out-of-order" due to improper
management, and back to square one. What a waste of funds!
It is indeed extremely difficult to say what is the best option because the
options need to be suitable for the specific area.
According to my opinion the best, long-term option is distribution of water by
pipelines stored in the overhead tanks. The water from the third aquifer
needs to be accessed very cautiously, to avoid cross contamination, and
pumped up to overhead tanks.
Until the implementation of such huge projects to cover the whole country the
best option, for the interim period, is harvesting of rainwater. Awareness,
training and management are the three main components to run these projects
successfully in the beginning. The objective of Project Well is to make the
dug well project sustainable at the village level. To make it
sustainable, a team of three field staff has been involved who would train and
supervise the users of 26 dug wells only for one year.
To increase the crop production during the period of green revolution
methods like workshops organized by local NGOs, programs broadcasted on the
radio mainly for the farmers (chasi bhaid'eyr bolchhi) were/are used to promote
the use of high yield variety of seeds and the use of fertilizers and
pesticides. These informative methods can be used for training the users
of dug wells. As the farmers know today when to apply fertilizers and
pesticides to their crops, similarly the dug well users would know how to
maintain their dug wells, community or private, in few years.
Rome was not built in one day.
Suggestions for the schools:
a) If there is a pond nearby, preserve it and install a bacteria removal filter
before supplying water to the school tap. Many families in the
villages of the district of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, use pond water for
cooking that constitutes 25% of their daily water usage.
b)Try excavating a couple of shallow dug wells using the guidelines used by
Project Well and test the water for arsenic, quarterly. (Details are available
on the web site (www.projectwellusa.org>). The arsenic level in water
of 5 concrete, shallow dug wells provided by Project Well were monitored for
one year (ending July 2003) and it was found that in all the five wells arsenic
level was lower than 50 PPB throughout the year except for one which increased
to more than 100 PPB in the driest months of April and May. During this
period the consumers were requested to collect water from other sources that
are located far. According to the users, it is worth having an arsenic
safe water source that would provide water for ten months rather than having no
source at all in their locality.
Project Well is trying to assess the cause of the increase in arsenic in
this particular well. Suggestions from the experts would be a great help.
The bacteria can be removed by filtering the water if the use of Theoline,
a disinfectant, is not preferred.
c) During the monsoon period rainwater can be collected for drinking.
There are several methods practiced in many parts of the world.
If none of the rainwater harvesting methods can be implemented then properly
installed deep tube wells (refer to John McArthur's suggestion circulated to
arsenic crisis group on 14th July,2003) can be an option. But extra
caution need to be taken in detecting the level "deep". It is
also important to strictly supervise the drilling, insertion of
the pipes, to avoid cross contamination and detecting the safe depth.
Use of arsenic removal filters is the last option if none of the above works.
There are problems with all methods suggested so far for the long-term disposal
of arsenic waste.
The 'green' disposal method recently developed by Naval Materials Research
Laboratory ( NMRL), DRDO, Ministry Of Defence, Shil-Badlapur Road, Addl. Ambernath-421506
"A SIMPLE AND ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE DRINKING WATER FILTER FOR ARSENIC
REMEDIATION" sounds very good but who knows that the construction
industries that would use the non-leachable cement blocks made from the arsenic
sludge would not face the same fate as the asbestos industries are facing
today.
Use of a
checklist in prioritizing the methods suitable for the schools based on its
location would be a good start.
Thanking you.
Dr. Meera M Hira Smith
Date:
Sun, 13 Jul 2003 04:14:17 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [arsenic-crisis] Providing safe water to school children - LGED
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I think you are aware of Primary Education Development Program.
Local Government and Engineering
Department of Bangladesh is planning to sink
another 15,000 tubewells on the
premises of primary schools. Do you have any
concrete suggestions how we can
provide safe drinking water to school-going
children? What are the
sustainable mechanisms?
Your contribution would be highly
appreciated.
Mokhlesur Rahman