Polluted water for irrigation = a recipe for public health disaster

September 1, 2018

Urban pollutants and agriculture run off effect an aquifers’ quality ©NEER Foundation, Meerut India

5-7 minutes read (<720 words)

India is set to overtake China as the most populated country in Asia, however the availability and access to basic needs, such as clean drinking water and safe food, leave a lot to be desired. According to a recent study by the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI), 70 percent of the India’s freshwater, both ground and surface, is contaminated.

Background:

I was born in Meerut, a northern Indian city in the state of (western) Uttar Pradesh, and spent the first 26 years of my life studying, working and living in the peri-urban parts of the district, including Muzaffarnagar, Bagpat (my ancestral town)/Baduat and Daurala village to name a few.

Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Khatauli, Baraut are a few towns, which can be seen in this map ©Google

I witnessed first hand how farmers used the polluted surface and groundwater aquifers to not only irrigate their crops but also to dilute and prepare their dairy products (milk, yogurt, butter, ghee and others), along with cleaning and bathing their livestock.

Janhit Foundation (JF), the grassroots organization that I was a part of the team, partnered with Toxic Links, Center for Science and Environment (CSE), Peoples Science Institute (PSI), D’dun and IIT Roorkee along with Navdanya , to provide samples and participate in various similar studies. JF also formed partnership with Pure Earth (formerly Blacksmith Institute) for their toxic sites identification program (TSIP), International POPs Elimination Network (IPEN) and organic agricultural arm of the central government agency National Center for Organic Farming (NCOF) to conduct studies on water, food, environment and public health in and around Meerut and the neighboring districts. In 2005, the blood sampling of farmers and their families in the grain bowl of India, Punjab state, was found alarmingly high in a study.

The years in between:

Since early 2000s until late 2011, I got to live and work extensively in the northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh under the aegis of grassroots nonprofits, consulting agencies and international NGOs. During those years, I saw how and why the two phases of Ganga Action Plan (GAP) failed and what was wrong with the way it got implemented along the course of the river Ganges. Most wastewater treatment plants were running inadequately because of the lack of electricity, and poor operation and maintenance. Other times the treatment plants were so full that they had to just flow the raw, untreated sewage in the holy river of Ganga, Yamuna, Hindon and Kali rivers in northern India. The result? These rivers and parts of them look more like a sewage canal.

Kali River pollution in northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh ©NEER Foundation

Many approaches, including the unconventional ones of treating wastewater via introduction of bacteria, have been applied in the years past, without any substantial success. Repeated loans, grants and technical aid from foreign governments and modern approaches such as water vending machines/ATMs, small water enterprises (SWEs) and urban small water enterprises (USWEs) for urban slums, can only do so much and are yet to deliver long term solutions.

Present day:

India is the 15th largest exporter of agriculture produce. However, according to the NITI report, at least 600 million Indians, which is almost half of the country’s 1.3 population, contends with high or extreme water stress. This is especially hard on women, children and young girls, who end up missing school in extreme cases.

In conclusion:

From India to the US, (Ministry of Environment and MoWater Resources in India and EPA in the US) are working towards combating and banning the pesticides and other heavy metal contaminants. India still has a long way to go for securing safe water and food for its rapidly growing population, which is predicted to add 440M more by 2050.

This post Polluted water for irrigation means a recipe for disaster first appeared on theflipsideofdevelopment.wordpress.com For all other related posts, please click here.

Disclaimer: This blog post has been adopted from Circle of Blue’s latest article on India. Thoughts and views expressed are entirely mine. For any study, links and references, please visit the original article and reports cited in this blog post.

Studies and reports links (chronologically):