Sludge Watch ==> India's water problem needs local solutions

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

This report fits in nicely with the wastewater effluent recycling 
story...the need to rethink the 'mega water project' and sewage treatment / 
flush toilet paradigm.

As America's toilets and industries are flushing away the one time 'fossil 
water' groundwater of the continent, American and European multinational 
water companies are ready to visit these water solutions ...that are really 
water squandering schemes...to vulnerable second and third world countries.

These countries are in some areas already dealing with pesticide or sludge 
contaminated groundwater...and some places in India clean drinking water 
costs more than milk.

If you want to see something frightening..look at the world vision of land 
applied sludge
that is the brain child of N-Viro, Maurice Strong (Canada), and the World 
Bank...(and others).

We can't govern or inspect sludge spreading properly in the USA and 
Canada...imagine how that would work in the Third World with their lack of 
infrastructure and openly corrupt governments.

http://www.ch2m.com/WFEO/main/assets/UrbanWasteAgriculture.doc




.........................................................


http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2718



India's water problem needs local solutions
Posted: 04 Apr 2006

Grand infrastructure schemes with dams and long-distance pipelines cannot 
solve India’s water problems. Prudent policies must find local solutions and 
include wastewater recycling, says Sunita Narain.
Our political leaders tend to be myopic about most matters. They rely on 
bureaucrats who tell them everything is under control. Faced with a water 
problem, an experienced civil servant will easily convince a minister – be 
it at state or central level – that the problem will soon go away.



Polluted river, Delhi, India.
© WHO/P. Virot
Either the problem is temporary, and will be sorted out as soon as it rains; 
or it is political, the opposition is fomenting trouble; or the problem is 
merely local.


Nonsense. India’s population is growing, industry is growing and 
agricultural output is growing. Consequently, the demand for water is 
growing, too. It is doing so in rural and urban areas. What is not 
increasing in all likelihood is the natural supply of water. Rather, climate 
change may even mean there will be less water in future. It is therefore 
high time to draft viable policies.


So far, however, official programmes have hardly helped. One reason is that 
our technocrats appear to be as far-sighted as our politicians are 
short-sighted. They assure the government that they have a grandiose plan, 
drafted years ago. It should be revived. It will take money and time. The 
plan is to build another pipeline from even further, from where there is no 
water stress.


Forgotten wastewater


Sadly, both vision-distortions add up. The long-term perspective serves a 
short-term goal. Elections are drawing near. The grand scheme sounds good. 
Our leaders promise to take us to a wonderful world, with clean water 
flowing abundantly. Trust us, the government knows what it is doing.



Women at a waterpump, Tidi, Rajasthan, India.
© Kai Friese/People & the Planet.
Governments come and go; the water troubles get worse. The big schemes only 
deliver a fraction of what was promised, but they cause new frustrations. 
Farmers are angry because the expensive infrastructure does not fulfil their 
needs. Too much of the precious liquid is reserved for cities.


Urban people are frustrated, because they nonetheless do not get the amounts 
required. Protests occur and so does violence. Last summer, the police fired 
at a rally of farmers in Rajasthan, one of India’s driest states, leaving 
several dead.


What is not understood is that the nation must make do with the water it 
has. What is ignored is the grass-root reality, which, of course, matters 
more than any official planning document. What is under-rated is wastewater, 
a resource that must not be wasted.


Unequal shares


Consider Delhi, for example. It is estimated that at least 40 per cent of 
the population live ‘illegally’, in slums and other unauthorised 
settlements. Official plans simply pretend that these people do not exist.


On the other hand, successive governments have accused slum-dwellers of 
polluting the Yamuna, the major river. Yes, their hutments look dirty. But 
any intelligent person should understand that the poor are not the main 
source of pollution. Water is polluted by those who use it. And Delhi’s poor 
only get a very small share.


The city officially supplies 3,600 million litres of water to its people, 
every day. But roughly only half of it reaches households. The rest is 
officially accounted for as ‘distribution losses’. The water that is 
supplied creates inequity and waste. Seventy per cent of Delhi gets less 
than 5 per cent of the water, while quarters where government officials and 
the rich reside get a staggering 400-500 litres per capita daily.


It is not known how much groundwater people or factories extract. But one 
can calculate the amount, working backwards from the waste generated. That 
is normally not done because our incompetent planners do not look at water 
provision and sewage disposal in one go. It is safe to assume, however, that 
most of the water supplied becomes wastewater.


Treatment plants


Delhi generates over 3,900 million litres daily (mld) of wastewater. That 
means the city probably uses some 4,400 mld of water. In other words, it has 
a per capita availability of 317 litres per day. Compare this to Singapore, 
which uses 165 litres per day and person. Who says Delhi is water-poor?


Singapore, of course, does something that Delhi does not. Singapore cleans 
up its wastewater, making it potable again. In principle, Delhi could do so, 
too. But massive investment in sewage treatment did not lead to convincing 
results. Once again, grand schemes prevailed over grass-roots reality. What 
went wrong?


A lot. For instance, treatment plants were not built where they were needed. 
They were built where plots were vacant. Accordingly, sewage must be 
transported over long distances. In the case of the largest plant, 
transportation costs more than treatment itself.


Moreover, investments in treatment plants did not go along with adequate 
spending on drains. Unsurprisingly, a report by the Central Pollution 
Control Board found in 2004 that 73 per cent of Delhi’s treatment plants 
were functioning below design capacity, whereas 7 pr cent were simply 
defunct.


Given the under-performance of domestic authorities, one might bet on 
external advice. However, recent plans for Delhi made in cooperation with 
the World Bank had to be shelved. Rather than assessing the real need, the 
Bank simply promoted the principle of privatisation. Somehow things would 
get better, as soon as a private company was put in charge. Safe water would 
be available seven days a week and 24 hours a day.


Market forces


What pretended to be a rational, economic approach was really only another 
grand scheme in disguise. It made no difference that ideology this time 
stressed market forces, rather than administrative power. Again, wastewater 
was not considered.


Nor was there an adequate estimate of how much additional water would be 
needed for 24-hour service. The work-plan simply stated that the private 
company would reduce the 50 per cent distribution losses, and that this 
recovered water would make good the difference.


There was no understanding of the ‘losses’. Did the Bank really believe that 
it would be enough to charge poor people for water presumably stolen? From 
what little is known, it seems water losses are mostly about leakages from 
underground connections. Which company, however efficient, would be able to 
retrofit all the underground connections?


In practice, the plan would have amounted to charging poor people more in 
order to provide better services to rich people. What a bizarre approach to 
Delhi’s worries! The real issue, of course, would be to ensure supply to 
all, on an equitable basis. Meter the rich people, recover full costs from 
them and reform the sewage system.


City policies


In principle, every city can – and must – adopt a strategy based on 
collecting water locally, supplying it locally and treating the waste 
locally. Cities must look at groundwater reserves carefully and augment such 
reserves. They should only draw water from external sources after optimising 
their own.


It would also make sense to segregate waste – household waste from 
industrial waste – so that what is relatively less toxic can be cleaned up 
and then used to recharge groundwater or irrigate fields. Israel does that.


Moreover, it makes sense to reduce the water need in homes and factories. 
Rich Australia has passed a bill that mandates household equipment be 
water-efficient. In India, flush toilets still use more water than anywhere 
else in the world.


Moving India in the right direction will require a major change in mindset. 
The saddest fact is that we see frugality as an admission of our poverty. 
Any politician who asks for conservation becomes a herald of rationing and 
scarcity. Therefore, they play bold and promise grand schemes. It is, they 
say, what the country wants.


Source: D+C magazine and Third World Network Features.


Sunita Narain heads the non-governmental Centre for Science and Environment 
in Delhi and is editor of the bi-weekly journal Down to Earth.