Water contamination in Pakistan

Recently World Wide Fund for Nature and Several NGOs in Pakistan completed a report on the water situation in Pakistan. Some of it's findings as pe rthe Dawn newspaper were:

Water contamination in the country is continuing unabated as the issue does not feature high on the agenda of the government which also lacks commitment to enforce laws it has enacted for protecting water for future generations.

This apathy on the part of the government, enforcement agencies and the industrial and agriculture sectors responsible for contamination is resulting in the death of at least 250,000 children every year while adults are facing severe health hazards.

This was revealed in a report launched by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Pakistan in collaboration with Actionaid Pakistan, Pani Pakistan, Sungi, Pakistan Environmental Lawyers Association, Shehri and Human Welfare and Nature Conservation Society at a press conference here on Thursday.

WWF-Pak Fresh Water and Toxics Programme director Hammad Naqi told the newsmen that all the data for the report “Pakistan’s waters at risk” had been collected from various official studies so that the authorities could not challenge its authenticity.

The News, another leading Daily newspaper expands furthur on the situation:

The picture becomes more disturbing if one looks at it more closely. For instance, the government's own data reveals that 99 per cent of industrial effluent and 92 per cent of urban wastewater is discharged untreated into rivers and the sea (the extent of damage to marine life and the ecosystems of these bodies of water can probably not even be imagined). Drinking water in most urban cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Multan and even Abbotabad and Islamabad has been found to be laced with biological and chemical pollutants (according to a survey conducted by the NGO Network and the National Institute of Health, three-quarters of all water in the federal capital is not suitable for drinking). Equally alarmingly, 36 per cent of the population of Sindh and Punjab is exposed to arsenic levels in water that are five times more than the safe limit as prescribed by the World Health Organisation. The picture is quite dismal and reflects, regrettably, the government's misplaced priorities since some other areas receive more attention and funding (the most obvious being defence).

As the figures above suggest, it would actually not be a cliché to say that improving the quality of water in Pakistan is a life and death issue -- it is precisely just that. What is needed is a government that displays the political will and commitment to address this issue seriously, gives it the priority that it deserves and does not dismiss it as a fashionable issue advocated by the NGO sector for its own ends such as funding and so on (one suspects that is what the government partly tends to think of the matter).

I dont think Pakistan is alone in it's struggle to balance development and water protection. I have heard people say that the economy supersedes the environment when a country is developing. But the where do you draw the line? how many people need to die from water pollution before one realizes that sanctity of life is more important then the economy.

What drives landowners and others to remove pollution causing sources in the developed world? I thinnk it is the legal implications of the impact their land may cause to human health. As in, the threat of a legal suit and/or heavy fine from the government drives water pollution protection.

In summary the key components of water pollution protection is as follows:

• Government Regulations that set limits for different contaminants
• Government regulators who oversee the implementation of these regulations
• Some sort of check or audit on the government to make sure it is doing it's job
• Public awareness and consultation
  
• A justice system to seek out pollutors
• technical skills ( includes consultants, lab technicians, contractors, etc)

I am sure I have missed some components.in the above bullets but the point is that it is not easy to implement regulations that the developed world currently has and use them in a devleoping country. This is a multi step and multi tiered process which could take decades to implement. So what is the solution?

A question to explore on another blog post.