The arsenic problem in Bangladesh was born of good intentions. For 20 years, government and United Nations officials, as well as Bangladeshi aid groups, urged Bangladeshis to stop drinking unclean pond water, to prevent the lethal diseases it bred. Instead, they were to invest in tube wells to tap into underground aquifers. Unfortunately, no one tested the aquifers for arsenic. - nytimes.
Now they've found out that at least 29% of all these aquifers are contaminated with arsenic, which causes diseases including cancers. Bangladesh, however, is so poor that replacing all the tube-wells is prohibitavely expensive. And, as one official pointed out, 10,000 children a year were dying from unclean water and the associated diseases.
Can't we take some of that Red-Cross aid that Indonesia is leaving to rot on its wharves and send it to Bangladesh? There were solar stills and water-purifiers donated, I'm sure of it. If Indonesia puts a higher price on waging war with the Tamils than saving its own refugees, lets just take the containers back and send them to a people who would be grateful for the stuff.
I'm still rather annoyed that I got guilt-tripped into donating money and then I find out 5 months later that it was not needed or wasted.
In last year's New Scientist (Nov. 11) they even suggest a solution: adding sulphate salts to the wells and acquifiers polluted with arsenic. It creates arsenic sulphide, which is insoluble and precipitates out of the water. Injecting sulphates salts also promotes the growth of sulphate-reducing bacteria, which should remove any arsensic from the water.
Posted by: phreq at September 14, 2005 04:12 PM