The price of consuming unhealthy water… Syed Mohammad Ali
Pakistan occupies the unenviable position of being one of the worst countries in the world in terms of access to clean water. Much of the populace, for whom privately maintained filtration systems or reliance on bottled water remains unaffordable, water contamination has become a major problem.
Waterborne diseases are already responsible for a significant proportion of the disease burden in the country. Moreover, climate change, population pressures and unchecked pollution are causing this already massive problem to further escalate. Contaminated water consumption is responsible for causing severe diarrhea, which claims the lives of thousands of people, especially children, on an annual basis, in addition to causing a perpetual drain on the already fledgling public healthcare system.
The water consumed by the average Pakistani citizen is severely contaminated with different forms of pollutants ranging from fecal matter and microbes to household waste, antibiotics and other medical drugs. The improper disposal of industrial waste has led to harmful concentrations of metals in water supplies, which have been linked to growing rates of cancer. Several independent scientific studies have pointed to the prevalence of varied harmful contaminants in drinking water across different parts of the country. A study on water quality in Rawalpindi and Islamabad found pathogenic microorganisms in around half the samples collected. A water quality study in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa also found microbiological contamination and unacceptable levels of iron. Water samples collected in parts of Balochistan were also contaminated by microbes and nitrates.
The dumping of agricultural waste into freshwater bodies is another significant cause of contamination. For example, samples collected around Multan have shown ground water contamination by pesticides used for growing cotton. The lack of maintenance of sanitation and drainage lines causes frequent leakages, whereby adjoining piped water supplies are polluted by fecal matter containing coli bacteria. Unfortunately, Pakistan is a country where open defecation also remains common due to lack of adequate sanitation facilities which, in turn, is another major source of groundwater contamination.
Islamabad and Karachi treat only a small proportion of wastewater generated within their vicinities. Astonishingly, a city the size of Lahore has no functioning wastewater treatment facilities at all. In the absence of such vital infrastructure, wastewater generated by households and industries must either be stored in septic tanks, when they are available, or else it is directed to poorly maintained sewer systems, or open drains, from where it makes its way into nearby water bodies or fields.
Despite these glaring problems, successive governments have not paid much attention to investing in water treatment and sanitation facilities. They have not even bothered to ensure baseline water quality via routine check-ups of chlorine levels in randomly selected households, which offers an efficient and inexpensive way to get rid of pathogens in water.
The National Environmental Action Plan for the country, developed over two decades ago, claimed that it would prioritise clean drinking water provision across urban and rural areas. However, such plans have obviously not materialised. Instead of building more flyovers and roads, or investing in other white elephant schemes, improving drinking water quality for all citizens is a more worthy cause for spending our scarce public resources, which offers significant productivity and health related benefits as well.
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