[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE GLOBAL NEED FOR ACCESS TO SAFE DRINKING WATER
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 12, 2000
__________
Serial No. 106-162
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Commerce
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
67-636 WASHINGTON : 2001
COMMITTEE ON COMMERCE
TOM BLILEY, Virginia, Chairman
W.J. ``BILLY'' TAUZIN, Louisiana JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JOE BARTON, Texas RALPH M. HALL, Texas
FRED UPTON, Michigan RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Vice Chairman SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania BART GORDON, Tennessee
CHRISTOPHER COX, California PETER DEUTSCH, Florida
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
STEVE LARGENT, Oklahoma ANNA G. ESHOO, California
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina RON KLINK, Pennsylvania
BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California BART STUPAK, Michigan
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
GREG GANSKE, Iowa TOM SAWYER, Ohio
CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland
TOM A. COBURN, Oklahoma GENE GREEN, Texas
RICK LAZIO, New York KAREN McCARTHY, Missouri
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
JAMES E. ROGAN, California DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona LOIS CAPPS, California
CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING,
Mississippi
VITO FOSSELLA, New York
ROY BLUNT, Missouri
ED BRYANT, Tennessee
ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland
James E. Derderian, Chief of Staff
James D. Barnette, General Counsel
Reid P.F. Stuntz, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Testimony of:
Huq, Anwarul, Research Associate Professor, Center of Marine
Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology
Institute.................................................. 16
Jones, Gerald, Vice President, International Services,
American Red Cross......................................... 11
Lockery, Peter, Senior Advisor, Water Sanitation and
Environmental Health Care.................................. 21
Quintero, Adrianna I., Project Attorney for Public Health,
Natural Resources Defense Council.......................... 29
Sampat, Payal, Research Associate, World Watch Institute..... 34
Weiner, Hal, Executive Producer, PBS Series Journey to Planet
Earth, Screenscope, Inc.................................... 4
(iii)
THE GLOBAL NEED FOR ACCESS TO SAFE DRINKING WATER
----------
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2000
House of Representatives,
Committee on Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:15 a.m., in
room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Bliley
(chairman) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Bliley, Tauzin, Gillmor,
Shimkus, Bryant, Brown, Barrett and Luther.
Staff present: Nandan Kenkeremath, majority counsel; Bob
Meyers, majority counsel; Kristi Gillis, legislative clerk; and
Dick Frandsen, minority counsel.
Chairman Bliley. The committee will come to order.
This morning this hearing focuses on the global need for
access to safe drinking water. The Chair would recognize
himself for a brief opening statement.
The Food Quality Protection Act and the Safe Drinking Water
Act amendments of 1996 are among the most substantial laws from
the Commerce Committee. These laws modernized programs and gave
Americans better access to safe, abundant and affordable food
and water. The committee continues a vigilant oversight role in
these areas.
The good fortune in this country is not shared by the
world, however. UNICEF estimates that over 1 billion people in
the developing world do not have access to safe and plentiful
drinking water, and almost 3 billion have no adequate
sanitation systems.
Polluted water supplies cause the spread of infectious
disease. Nearly half of the world's population suffers from
water-related disease. Most of those affected are poor and live
in developing countries. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has
stated that if present consumption patterns continue, within 25
years, 2 out of every 3 people on Earth will live in dangerous
conditions with respect to drinking water.
Only a patchwork of international nongovernmental
organizations are involved in improving drinking water. Despite
the involvement of these organizations, the public health
concern from the global lack of access to safe drinking water
and sanitation remains very serious. The first thing we need to
do is understand the nature and importance of this issue. That
is the purpose of this hearing.
The witnesses are experts who can provide an overview, but
there is obviously much more to this problem. Increasingly,
public health problems do not have boundaries. Moreover,
competition for water can increase as a threat to international
stability and peace. Finally, a global strategy for water
security takes many years to implement. Tools exist today for
local and regional water management and protection. However,
current policies are not workable. Addressing this problem will
require political understanding and resolve.
This country can create the right atmosphere for solutions.
We can contribute expertise in technology and watershed
management. We can focus on the public health concerns that do
not stop at the border.
My time as chairman of the Commerce Committee is drawing to
a close. This hearing, in fact, will probably be the last
hearing that I will formally chair. Leaving this committee and
all it has done over the last 6 years will be difficult, but I
also know that the potential for the committee work is great.
Members will explore new public policy challenges and rise to
the task of finding solutions. It is with that spirit I wanted
to hold today's hearing and challenge the members who will
carry on the committee's efforts to reach great goals.
The Chair yields back the balance of his time and
recognizes the ranking member of the Health and Environment
Subcommittee, the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Brown.
Ms. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to sit
with you at, as you say, perhaps your last hearing. Thank you
for the service and the cooperation over the many years you
have been here.
Today's hearing on the global need for access to safe
drinking water addresses a huge and growing problem. As a
member of the International Relations Committee, I am well
aware of the role that access to clean, safe drinking water
plays in public health and economic development and even in
conflict within and among nations.
It is estimated that 1 billion people still lack safe
drinking water, and almost 3 billion do not have adequate
sanitation. More than 2 million children die each year from
sanitation-related diseases. According to the U.N.
Environmental Program, if present consumption patterns
continue, two out of every three people on Earth will live in
water-stressed conditions by the year 2025.
While some say technology can solve all of the world's
problems, we need to be aware of the enormity of this problem.
Harper's magazine a couple of months ago pointed out that for
every user of the Internet in the country of India, 135 Indians
do not have access to safe drinking water. We should be
concerned about the welfare of people in developing countries
where safe drinking water is also in short supply for their own
sakes, but we should also be concerned for more parochial
reasons. The world's borders simply can't hold back the spread
of water-related disease, the spread of water-related
conflicts, or the flight of refugees from poor conditions.
Furthermore, as the world's need for water grows, a demand
for water exports from the Great Lakes and other fresh-water
bodies in the world and the U.S. will also grow. The
International Joint Commission has stated that even small
diversions from the Great Lakes could harm the lakes'
ecosystem. My district lies along Lake Erie, and my
constituents strongly oppose international sales of water from
the Great Lakes. Instead, we should work with other nations to
improve water infrastructure and encourage conservation.
Mr. Chairman, as ranking member on the Health and
Environment Subcommittee, which is the authorizing committee
for the Safe Drinking Water Act, I cannot talk about drinking
water today without expressing my concern about the new rider
in the VA-HUD, Independent Agencies appropriations bill on
arsenic standards and drinking water. Millions of Americans
have arsenic in their drinking water at levels that scientists
say puts their health at risk. Arsenic is known to cause skin,
bladder and lung cancer. Doctors have also identified
incidences of heart disease, stroke and diabetes from arsenic
in drinking water supplies. A senior EPA official in charge of
the drinking water program has called arsenic in drinking water
a significant threat to our public health.
The current standard of 50 parts per billion has not been
changed in more than 50 years. That is why Congress set a
deadline of January 1, 2000, in the 1996 Safe Drinking Water
Act amendments for an updated, more protective standard. The
purpose of that deadline was to force the EPA to take action to
revise this standard.
The prestigious National Research Council, an arm of the
National Academy of Sciences, last year reaffirmed that the
current standard does not protect the public health and urged a
new standard be promulgated as expeditiously as possible.
Virtually everyone from World Health Organization to the water
supply companies in the U.S. agree that we need a more
stringent standard for arsenic in our drinking water. The only
debate is whether the standard should be 100 percent more
stringent, 500 percent more stringent or, as the EPA has
recommended, 1,000 percent more stringent.
The Republicans in Congress have added an environmental
rider in the VA-HUD bill that will result in yet another delay
before the new, stronger protective standard comes out. It has
been reported that the rider was added at the behest of the
mining industry. This change to the Safe Drinking Water Act
took place in secret negotiations on the VA-HUD bill. No formal
conference was held with meetings open to the public. Neither
the bill reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee nor
the bill that passed the House contains such a provision, but
somehow it ended up in the bill, and now we find it in the
conference report.
Make no mistake about it. The purpose of this rider is to
delay yet again the new protective arsenic standard for our
citizens' safe drinking water. This is the wrong way for this
body to do its business and will cause further harm to those
millions of Americans whose drinking water contains unhealthy
levels of arsenic.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing about
problems of global access to safe drinking water. I
congratulate you on your service, and I yield back the balance
of my time.
Chairman Bliley. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Illinois Mr. Shimkus.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say it is an
honor to serve with you up to the 11th hour of this Congress,
and we will go down working together. It has just been an
honor. I know you do also want to pause and reflect on the loss
of our sailors' lives this morning as we keep everything in
perspective and remember that we have great servants throughout
the country trying to do the bidding for our country.
I remember as a young cadet down in Panama being warned,
don't drink the water. They would give us canteens, and we were
supposed to drop two iodine tablets in there, significantly
just killing everything in the water. We had a few young, smart
cadets who obviously didn't follow instructions, and they
became very, very sick because of that. Now, that is also part
of the change between societies, but it also highlights the
importance of drinking water to me, and a thing we take pretty
much for granted.
In rural America we are fighting very diligently, through
the USDA and rural water program, to provide safe drinking
water out to the areas where it not be cost-effective or
efficient. I think this hearing will also address the issue of
safe drinking water for Third World countries, which have a
very similar problem: costly, probably an inefficient way to
attempt to meet a need.
I like coming to hearings, and I like the ability to get a
chance to learn things, and that is what we are here to do. I
thank the chairman for calling this hearing, and, Mr. Chairman,
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Bliley. The time of the gentleman has expired.
We will now hear testimony from our first witness. We would
ask you if you could to summarize your written statement and
try to limit it to 5 minutes, and your full statements will
appear in the record of the committee.
Our first witness is Mr. Hal Weiner, executive producer of
the PBS series, Journey to Planet Earth.
Welcome to the committee, Mr. Weiner.
STATEMENTS OF HAL WEINER, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, PBS SERIES
JOURNEY TO PLANET EARTH, SCREENSCOPE, INC.; GERALD JONES, VICE
PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL SERVICES, AMERICAN RED CROSS; ANWARUL
HUQ, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, CENTER OF MARINE BIOTECH-
NOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BIOTECHNOLOGY INSTITUTE; PETER
LOCKERY, SENIOR ADVISOR, WATER SANITATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH CARE; ADRIANNA I. QUINTERO, PROJECT ATTORNEY FOR PUBLIC
HEALTH, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; AND PAYAL SAMPAT,
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, WORLD WATCH INSTITUTE
Mr. Weiner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
House Committee on Commerce. As one of the executive producers
of the PBS series Journey to Planet Earth, I certainly welcome
the opportunity to share some of the thoughts of myself and our
crew and our distinguished panel of advisors about why we as a
Nation should care about the quality and availability of the
world's drinking water.
Let me just very briefly mention that we are guided by a
blue ribbon panel of scientists. We are funded in part by the
National Science Foundation, and our series is seen by
approximately 20 million people throughout the world. It is a
responsibility we at PBS do not take lightly.
As a filmmaker and journalist, I have worked in nearly 50
countries, and I have seen clear evidence that the growing
shortage of safe drinking water has become a public health and
economic emergency of global proportions. I think, equally
important, it has become a national security issue. Places like
Brittany, Shanghai and Mexico City we have seen intensive
agriculture and uncontrolled industrial development seriously
contaminate nonrenewable aquifers. We have filmed along the
shores of the Amazon, the Mekong and Jordan Rivers and found
that the forestation and population pressures impair the
economy of local communities by damaging and depleting
watershed resources. We have also documented stories in
Zimbabwe, Vietnam and the Middle East which suggest that
conflicts over environmental scarcities such as water can lead
to increased hostilities that could ultimately threaten our
country's national security.
I guess I am sort of part of the show-and-tell part of this
hearing, and I would like to do a little showing now. I have
brought along a couple of video clips that each run maybe 2 or
3 minutes. Here they are.
[Videotape played.]
Mr. Weiner. The next section coming up is in Jericho.
[Videotape played.]
Mr. Weiner. The final segment is in Zimbabwe.
[Videotape played.]
Mr. Weiner. Mr. Chairman, committee members, I hope that
what I have shared with you this morning helps bring an urgency
to finding reasonable solutions to a major environmental,
economic and, what I have learned recently in my travels around
the world, a potentially political crisis. Thank you for your
time and courtesies.
[The prepared statement of Hal Weiner follows:]
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Chairman Bliley. Thank you, Mr. Weiner.
We will now hear from Mr. Gerald Jones, Vice President of
International Services of the American Red Cross. Mr. Jones.
STATEMENT OF GERALD JONES
Mr. Jones. Chairman Bliley, Representative Brown, other
distinguished members of the Commerce Committee, I am Jerry
Jones, Vice President of International Services of the American
Red Cross, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on the global need for access to safe drinking
water, one of our principal health-related activities in
assisting vulnerable populations around the world.
Chartered by Congress in 1905, the American Red Cross is
mandated to provide a system of international and domestic
disaster relief. Our mission is to help people prevent, prepare
for, and respond to emergencies. We serve as the recognized
representative of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
movement within the United States. That movement is composed of
the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of
the Geneva Conventions; the 176 individual Red Cross and Red
Crescent societies around the world, including the American Red
Cross; and our International Federation, which serves as a
coordinating body. This unique global network of community-
based operations provides an unmatched capacity for immediate
humanitarian response anywhere in the world. Further, it allows
the American Red Cross to supplement the response of the U.S.
Government to international disasters and public health crises,
such as that posed by the lack of safe drinking water.
According to The World's Water report in 1998 and 1999, an
authoritative source, over 1 billion people in the world are
without safe drinking water or adequate sanitation day to day.
This year the American Red Cross is assisting more than 380,000
people by implementing water and sanitation programs in Central
America, Africa and the Balkans. The American Red Cross is
providing technical and financial assistance to improve water
supplies and to promote health education. Our total current
funding to improve water sanitation is $15 million provided by
private contributors; however, we have the capacity to expand
our response with increased funding.
Over the past decade, the American Red Cross has worked
tirelessly to tackle health-related problems associated with
water and sanitation in all corners of the globe. While the
American Red Cross's entry into this field is usually triggered
by a disaster, replacing water and sanitation systems destroyed
by natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch, many of our
assistance programs continue for 2 years or so afterwards.
The American Red Cross has helped Rwandans rebuild
community water systems following their civil war in 1995.
Following the 1995 war in Azerbaijan, people who fled to
refugee camps were the beneficiaries of the American Red Cross-
designed water and sanitation program, whose water treatment
facilities 5 years later still sustain thousands of families,
including children and elderly.
In the aftermath of the 1998 tidal wave disaster in Papua,
New Guinea, we provided financial assistance and sponsored a
water engineer to help affected communities resettle in new
villages out of harm's way. Currently major water sanitation
programs are under way to assist 75,000 people in Central
America still recovering from the devastation caused by
Hurricane Mitch.
Lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate
sanitation leads to infectious diseases: diarrhea, dysentery,
cholera, typhoid, malaria, skin diseases and others. Despite
international efforts targeting this health crisis over the
past two decades, modest gains often have been outpaced by
increased population growth and a lack of local capacities to
maintain already built infrastructures. As health education is
a critical component to water supply programs, the American Red
Cross, through the larger Red Cross movement, has the advantage
of an existing base of trained volunteers in local communities
throughout its network of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies
located in more than 176 countries worldwide.
There are two recommendations that I would like to share
with the committee. First, we need to make better use of best
industry practices. There are numerous examples of water,
sanitation and health education projects over the past decades
that achieve their goals as well as many lessons learned from
less successful efforts. From those experiences there is a
consensus among WHO, among Red Cross organizations, and others
involved about what approaches work best. The American Red
Cross believes that in order to effectively reduce water-
related diseases through improved access to safe drinking water
and adequate sanitation, the following program strategies
should be adhered to. Please bear in mind that these
recommendations focus on ways to make programs in rural areas
as sustainable as possible over the longer term.
We believe that we must address sanitation, hygiene and
health education needs along with making improvements to water
and sanitation facilities. Improved health often depends on how
water is utilized and is not simply a matter of supplying more
of it. We feel that you must require the beneficiary population
to be involved in health promotion, water system design and
operations, and to utilize local water committees to facilitate
operation and maintenance.
For example, in Nicaragua, health promoters and the persons
responsible for maintaining equipment receive specific training
in these areas.
We feel you must use technologies appropriate and
affordable in local settings. For example, gravity-fed water
systems are appropriate where reliable power systems may not be
available, such as in northwest Kenya's Kerio Valley, where we
are currently working. We feel you must utilize to the extent
possible locally manufactured or procured equipment and
construction materials, as well as local expertise and labor.
For example, hand pumps used to draw water from wells routinely
requires spare parts. It is necessary that these be readily
available locally.
We feel you must work in collaboration with local
government agencies, being cognizant of local legal frameworks.
In Azerbaijan, for example, water rights were secured through
local government prior to the drilling of new boreholes.
We feel it important that you account for local gender and
local cultural practices. For example, better access to safe
drinking water in Papua, New Guinea, meant installing a pipe
system to bring water into the village. This drastically
reduced the distance that women had to carry water and allowed
them to spend more time in preventive health measures for their
own children.
Second, just as this committee is doing today by holding
this oversight hearing, we need a renewed commitment to address
global water sanitation and health education programming. Over
the past decades, international organizations and their local
partners have developed their various capacities to implement
assistance programs in the areas of water and sanitation. It is
crucial that governments and the general public alike renew
their commitment to funding health education and safe drinking
water programs around the world, with the aim of saving lives
and improving health.
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to
share the American Red Cross experiences and efforts to address
the issue of global safe drinking water supplies. We look
forward to working with Congress and the new administration to
expand our efforts in this vital area of global public health.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Gerald Jones follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF GERALD JONES, VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL
SERVICES, AMERICAN RED CROSS
INTRODUCTION
Chairman Bliley, Representative Dingell, and other distinguished
members of the Commerce Committee, I am Gerald Jones, Vice President,
International Services of the American Red Cross. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on the global need for access to safe
drinking water--one of our principal health related activities in
assisting vulnerable populations around the world.
Chartered by Congress in 1905, the American Red Cross is mandated
to provide a system of international and domestic disaster relief. Our
mission is to help people prevent, prepare for and respond to
emergencies. The American Red Cross is an independent, nonprofit
organization, dedicated to providing critical people-focused services.
We serve as the recognized representative of the International Red
Cross and Red Crescent Movement within the United States. The Movement
is composed of the International Committee of the Red Cross, guardian
of the Geneva Conventions; the 176 individual Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies around the world, including the American Red Cross;
and the International Federation, which serves as a coordinating body.
This unique global network of community based operations provides an
unmatched capacity for immediate humanitarian response anywhere in the
world. Further, it allows the American Red Cross to supplement the
response of the United States government to international disasters and
public health crises, such as that posed by the lack of safe drinking
water.
According to The World's Water 1998-1999, an authoritative source,
over a billion people in the world are without safe drinking water or
adequate sanitation day to day. This year the American Red Cross is
assisting more than 380,000 people by implementing water and sanitation
programs in Central America, Africa and the Balkans. In numerous
communities throughout El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua,
Kosovo, Kenya, and Mozambique the American Red Cross is providing
technical and financial assistance to improve water supplies and
promote health education. Our total current funding to improve water
sanitation is $15 million provided by private contributors; however, we
have the capacity to expand our response with increased funding.
RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT MOVEMENT INVOLVEMENT
Over the past decade, the American Red Cross and our Red Cross and
Red Crescent Movement partners, including the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC), International Federation of Red Cross and Red
Crescent Societies, and National Societies, have been working
tirelessly to tackle the health related problems associated with water
and sanitation in all corners of the globe.
Role of the American Red Cross
While the American Red Cross' entry into the field is usually
triggered by a disaster, replacing water and sanitation systems
destroyed by natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch, many of our
assistance programs continue for a year or more afterwards The American
Red Cross has helped Rwandans rebuild community water systems following
the civil war in 1995. Following the 1995 war in Azerbaijan, people who
fled to refugee camps were the beneficiaries of an American Red Cross
designed water and sanitation program whose water treatment facilities,
five years later, still sustain thousands of families, including
children and elderly. In the aftermath of a 1998 tidal wave disaster in
Papua New Guinea, the American Red Cross provided financial assistance
and sponsored a water engineer to help affected communities resettle
new villages out of harms way. Currently, major water and sanitation
programs are underway to assist over 75,000 people in Honduras,
Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala still recovering from the
devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.
Lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation leads
to infectious diseases like diarrhea, dysentery, cholera, typhoid,
malaria, skin diseases and others. Despite international efforts
targeting this health crisis over the past two decades, modest gains
often have been outpaced by increased population growth and a lack of
local capacities to maintain built infrastructures. So the situation
persists and coverage levels are eroding, according to the World Health
Organization which will soon release results of a ten-year survey of
this trend. As health education is a critical component to water supply
programs, the American Red Cross, through the Red Cross Movement, has
the advantage of an existing base of trained volunteers in local
communities throughout its network of Red Cross and Red Crescent sister
Societies located in more than 176 countries worldwide.
Role of the International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) leads the
Movement's response in conflict situations. In 1999, the ICRC conducted
operations with a water supply component in 31 different countries.
While the historical record indicates that nations seldom go to war
over water, the present day reality is that the vision for improved
health requires increasing access to fresh water when nearly two-thirds
of the world's population live in river basins that demand sharing
arrangements between countries (Forum: War and Water, ICRC, 1998). For
example, the potential for conflict increases as the pressure for water
becomes greater between countries along rivers, such as along the Nile,
the Amazon. It should be noted that through appropriations to the
Department of State Department, Congress provides a sizeable portion of
the financial support for ICRC operations worldwide.
International Federation
Donor Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, either bilaterally or
through a coordinating body known as the International Federation,
approach the need for safe water on two levels. Emergency Response
Units of trained individuals with specialized equipment stand ready to
be deployed anywhere in the world to purify and distribute water until
regular supplies are restored. Over the longer term, we support local
Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies in rebuilding permanent water
and sanitation infrastructure, conducting health education campaigns,
and implementing plans for disaster preparedness and mitigation.
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING ACCESS TO SAFE WATER GLOBALLY
There are two recommendations that I would like to share with the
committee. First, we need to make use of best industry practices. There
are numerous examples of water, sanitation, and health education
projects over the past decades that achieved their goals, as well as
many lessons learned from less successful efforts. From those
experiences, there is consensus among major organizations involved
about what approaches work best. These agencies include the World
Health Organization, the American Red Cross and its partners in the Red
Cross and Red Crescent Movement, government donors like USAID, national
governments that receive donor assistance, and various international
and local NGOs.
The American Red Cross believes that in order to effectively reduce
water-related disease through improved access to safe drinking water
and adequate sanitation, the following programming strategies should be
adhered to. Please bear in mind that these recommendations focus on
ways to make programs in rural areas as sustainable as possible over
the longer term.
--Address sanitation, hygiene and health education needs along with
making improvements to water and sanitation facilities.
Improved health often depends on how water is utilized and is
not simply a matter of supplying more of it.
--Require the beneficiary population be involved in health promotion,
water system design and operation, and utilize local water
committees to facilitate operation and maintenance. For
example, in Nicaragua, health promoters and persons responsible
for maintaining equipment receive specific training.
--Use technologies appropriate and affordable in the local setting. For
example, gravity fed water systems are appropriate where
reliable power systems may not be available, such as in
northwest Kenya's Kerio Valley where the American Red Cross is
currently working.
--Utilize to the extent possible locally manufactured or procured
equipment and construction materials as well as local expertise
and labor. For example, handpumps used to draw water from wells
routinely require spare parts and it is necessary that these be
readily available locally.
--Work in collaboration with local government agencies, being cognizant
of local legal frameworks. In Azerbaijan for instance, water
rights were secured through the local government prior to
drilling new boreholes.
--Account for local gender and local cultural practices. For example,
better access to safe drinking water in Papua New Guinea meant
installing a piped system to bring water into the village. This
drastically reduced the distance women had to carry water,
allowing them greater time to spend toward preventive health
measures for children.
Second, just as the Committee is doing today by holding this
oversight hearing, we need a renewed commitment to address global
water, sanitation and health education programming. Over the past
decades, international organizations and their local partners have
developed their various capacities to implement assistance programs in
the area of water and sanitation. More recently, improved evaluation
methods are being developed to measure the actual impact of such
programs. It is crucial that governments and the general public alike
renew their commitment to funding health education and safe drinking
water programs around the world with the aim of saving lives and
improving health.
An independent organization, the American Red Cross relies on the
generosity of the American public to support our international disaster
response, including water supply programs. As the recognized
representative of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
in the United States, the American Red Cross stands ready to work with
the Commerce Committee, State Department and others, to address the
needs of those around the world in gaining access to safe drinking
water through our unique global network.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to share the American
Red Cross experiences and efforts to address the issue of global safe
drinking water supplies. We look forward to working with Congress and
the new Administration to expand our efforts in this vital area of
global public health.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you, Mr. Jones.
We will now hear from Dr. Anwarul Huq, I hope I got that
right, Research Associate Professor, Center of Marine
Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute.
Dr. Huq.
STATEMENT OF ANWARUL HUQ
Mr. Huq. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name
is Anwarul Huq, and I am an associate professor at the
University of Maryland Biotech Institute.
Chairman Bliley. Would you pull the microphone as close to
you as you can. We have a very antiquated sound system in here.
Mr. Huq. Is it better now?
Chairman Bliley. That is better.
Mr. Huq. Let me commend you on holding a hearing on the
important topic of safe drinking water, a concern for millions
of people throughout the world. About 25 years ago, at the
beginning of my career, when I was working as a research
officer at the International Center for Biodisease Research in
Bangladesh, 1 day a middle-aged man arrived at the hospital
with a young girl in his arms. The girl was nearly dead from
drinking contaminated water, and I could read from the face of
the doctor attending the patient that there was very little
hope that the girl was going to survive. After 12 hours, she
was able to drink fluid and all the hydration solution
developed at that center to treat cholera patients. After 24
hours, the girl, that little girl, although extremely weak, was
released from the hospital, and she was allowed to go home. Had
there been no help, instead of walking out of the hospital,
someone would have carried her into the graveyard. That day I
vowed that if I could save even one life, I would consider my
own life well spent.
Unlike smallpox, water-borne diseases cannot be eradicated
because many of the pathogens are naturally occurring in
aquatic environments, notably Vibrio cholerae, the causative
agent of cholera. Intervention is, however, possible by
changing the way water is used through general education and
increased public awareness and, most importantly, widespread
initiatives to protect water from undesired contamination.
According to a report published by the World Health
Organization, many developed countries have water sources that
are continuing to deteriorate in quality. For example, cholera
has appeared in the former Soviet Union. After a century
without cholera epidemics in South America, Peru and other
neighboring countries, several other neighboring countries saw
an outbreak of cholera in 1992, believed to have been caused by
unboiled or untreated drinking water. In Bangladesh, the
majority of the population in villages still depend on
untreated surface water for household consumption for reasons
of taste and convenience. In a country like Bangladesh where
fuel wood is very short in supply, boiling water, effective as
it is, is not done because of the lack of fuel wood.
In my own research, we found that four layers of sari cloth
of the commonest type used by Bangladeshi villagers, 99 percent
of cholera-causing cells attached to zooplankton can be
filtered from drinking water. The sari material used to filter
contaminated water can be washed and air dried for reuse.
Effective, low-cost and culturally acceptable measures to
improve clean water are having a dramatic impact: The project
under way in Bangladesh involving over 60,000 people funded by
the National Institutes of Nursing Research of the National
Institutes of Health to treat workers, educate the villagers on
the importance of simple filtration, a method that we developed
at the University of Maryland, demonstrate how to use the
filter effectively and how to decontaminate the filter after
each use. This training is accomplished by one-on-one family
visits, as well as the use of colorful posters, community
discussions, and town hall meetings.
Increasingly people are using bottled water here and in
other countries. Sadly, there are not that many fortunate
people in the world who have access to or can afford to buy
bottled water in their daily lives.
In conclusion, safe drinking water is a global necessity.
In the years ahead, both developed and developing countries
will consider their supply of drinking water as valuable and
vital as we view petroleum resources on a global scale today.
Thank you again for inviting me to testify before this
committee, and I would be happy to respond to any questions you
might have.
[The prepared statement of Anwarul Huq follows:]
Prepared Statement of Anwarul Huq, Research Associate Professor, Center
of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
At a time when man has stepped foot on the moon and our country is
considering sending landing craft to Mars and other planets, it is
tragic that thousands of people die each day here on earth from
waterborne diseases like cholera, that are preventable. About 25 years
ago at the beginning of my career when I was working as research
officer at the International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research,
Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), one evening after spending 18 hours doing field
work in the ICDDR,B Field Hospital, I was relaxing over coffee when a
middle aged man arrived at the hospital with a young girl in his arms.
The girl, 9 or 10 years old, was nearly dead with sunken eyes and
hardly breathing. The doctors attended the patient immediately. I could
read from the face of the doctor that there was very little hope that
the girl would survive, but the doctor worked desperately hard. After
about 4 hours the vital signs of the little girl showed that she was
responding. After 12 hours, she was able to drink fluids, an oral
rehydration solution developed at the ICDDR,B for cholera patients.
After 24 hours she was released from the hospital. The little girl was
extremely weak as she walked out of the hospital. Had there been no
help, such as that available at the ICDDR,B field hospital, instead of
walking out of the hospital, some one would had carried this little
girl to a grave yard. That day, I vowed that if I could save even one
life, I would consider my own life well spent.
The impact of population growth worldwide has resulted in an
increased incidence of waterborne disease and diseases such as cholera
pose a real threat to public health, unless appropriate intervention
measures are initiated locally, regionally, and globally. It is
estimated that the volume of available renewable freshwater will
decrease by \1/3\ for each human being in the year 2025, compared to
what the world population had available per person in 1955. Unlike
smallpox, waterborne diseases cannot be eradicated, because many of the
pathogens are naturally occurring in aquatic environments, notably,
Vibrio cholerae, the causative agents of cholera. However, intervention
is possible by changing the way water is used, through general
education, and increased public awareness and, most importantly,
widespread initiatives to protect water from undesired contamination.
Because of industrialization, most developed countries tend to have
problems of chemical pollution, whereas most of the developing
countries suffer from pollution with domestic wastes because of the
lack of resources for waste management. In addition, the emergence of
pathogens resistant to chemicals used in water treatment and
disinfectant is a concern for those responsible for management of
clean, safe drinking water supplies.
Waterborne disease outbreaks are on the rise globally, both in
frequency and severity. Reports published by the United Nations
Children's Fund in 1993 demonstrated a direct correlation between safe
drinking water and death of children under 5 years of age. Another
report by the World Health Organization (WHO), published in 1992,
estimated that diarrheal disease traceable to water contamination kill
two million children each year. Although mortality from many of the
waterborne infections is generally low, the socio-economic impact in
both developed and developing countries is severe. In 1995, a
colloquium was held on ``A Global Decline in the Microbiological Safety
of Water: A call for Action'', organized by the American Academy of
Microbiology. Five years later, the Academy sponsored another
colloquium to re-evaluate the microbiological quality of drinking
water. It found that there is a need for improved and more powerful
molecular biology-based methods for detection of human pathogens in
water supplies and for a public health risk assessment, including
bacteria, viruses, and other organisms, such as toxic algae.
Rapid population growth, on one hand, is considered to have
contributed to the increase of bacterial contamination and
deteriorating public health conditions, but urbanization, on the other
hand, has provided treated, safe drinking water for millions of people.
At the beginning of the 20th century, typhoid fever was an emerging
disease in Europe and the United States. Fortunately, the disease was
controlled successfully in those communities that were provided with
filtered and chlorine-treated water. Nonetheless, when the
infrastructure deteriorates or is stressed to meet the demand of
increased population growth, outbreaks of waterborne diseases are still
likely to occur. According to a report published by the World Health
Organization in 1992, many developing countries have water sources that
are continuing to deteriorate in quality. For example, cholera has
reappeared in the former Soviet Union and the reappearance and
transmission of cholera, after a century without cholera epidemics, in
Lima, Peru, and several other neighboring cities and countries during
1992 is believed to have been caused by unboiled or untreated water
serving as drinking water. In fact, in both developed and developing
countries, ground water increasingly is becoming contaminated and, in
many cases is being depleted, since the renewal rate is declining
directly, or indirectly with population growth.
Although the microbiological quality of water is usually measured
by monitoring for the presence of certain pathogenic bacterial species,
the problem is not limited to bacteria but includes parasites and
viruses. Major bacterial problems in the United States in recent years
are E. coli 0157:H7 and Enterococcus. Both are intestinal bacteria that
can cause flu-like symptoms, as well as enteric infections. Earlier
this year, over 1,000 people were infected with E. coli 0157:H7 in
Walkerton, Ontario, Canada, and 90 individuals were hospitalized. At
least 10 died and an additional nine deaths were investigated. In the
summer of 1998, an outbreak caused by the same organism took place in a
theme park, traced to water, in suburban Atlanta, killing two. In June,
1998, 367 people became ill with nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting and
stomach pain, after consuming raw oysters. Although hardly anybody in
the United States will drink untreated water, nevertheless, if natural
water is contaminated, people may become infected indirectly, as in the
case of raw oysters taken from contaminated waters. Cryptosporidium has
caused massive waterborne epidemics worldwide and is also recognized as
the most important drinking water parasitic contaminant in the United
States. The largest outbreak of cryptosporidiosis occurred in 1993,
when 400,000 people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, were infected with
Cryptosporidium. Because of this and other outbreaks of waterborne
diseases, confidence in the purity and safety of our public drinking
water supply has gone down in the United States.
Numerous epidemics of cholera occurred in Europe and in the United
States in the 1800s. Tens of thousands of people died, until safe
drinking water became available. Between 1832 and 1875, cholera spread
rapidly and caused catastrophic epidemics in the United States.
Although no longer an epidemic threat in the United States, cholera and
other diarrheal diseases remain major killers of children globally,
especially in developing countries. According to a World Health
Organization report, there were over 293,000 cases of cholera, reported
worldwide in 1998. One must remember that these are only the reported
cases. More than 14,000 deaths, many of them children were reported to
have occurred in Rwandan refugee camps in 1994. It has long been known
that cholera is a waterborne disease, and the infectious agent, a
bacterium called Vibrio cholerae, is transmitted via water. Until 1992,
both North and South America were free of cholera epidemics for almost
a century. Unfortunately, after that massive epidemic in Peru and
involving almost all the countries of Latin America, cholera has become
pandemic in several countries in South America, killing over 8,000
people since 1992. It should be noted that this bacterium occurs
naturally in the aquatic environment. In an ongoing study in our
laboratory at the University of Maryland, cholera bacteria can be
easily detected in Chesapeake Bay. Although toxigenic strains have been
detected in the water of the Gulf Coast sporadically since 1978, so
far, nearly all of the Chesapeake Bay isolates have been proven to be
nontoxigenic. Those sporadic cases of cholera that have occurred in the
United States since 1973, except for a few, were related to travel to
cholera-endemic countries or consumption of local or imported seafood.
In addition, we have demonstrated that professional divers often have
elevated antibody to Vibrio cholerae bacteria, most probably a result
of exposure to cholera bacteria in the fresh and estuarine water where
they dive, including a fresh water reservoir in Maryland, where they
also have worked. The point is that there is always a risk, although
very small, for cholera to occur in the United States.
One very important aspect of determining bacteriologically safe
drinking water is to take into account the viable but nonculturable
(VBNC) phenomenon in bacteria, first reported from our laboratory at
the University of Maryland. In this state, bacteria remain viable,
maintaining virulence, but not growing on conventional bacteriological
culture media. They are essentially dormant or in a survival stage,
when environmental conditions do not lend themselves to active growth
of the bacteria, such as cold weather or less nutrient being available.
Therefore, these bacteria can easily be missed if appropriate methods
are not used for detection, namely molecular biology or biotechnology
methods for detection. It has been demonstrated that chlorine in the
form of sodium hypoclorite (Clorox), up to 2.5%, has very little effect
in killing V. cholerae when the bacteria are attached to plankton. In
fact, in pure culture, i.e., without plankton present, large numbers of
free living cells of V. cholerae can enter the VBNC, or dormant state,
when exposed to disinfectant. Thus, re-evaluation of disinfectants,
including chlorine, for treating drinking water supplies, particularly
when filtration systems are not effective at the highest level, such as
after very heavy storms and before chemical treatment.
Surface water has been implicated in the transmission of cholera
and other waterborne diseases. The association of vibrios, particularly
V. cholerae with plankton, specifically zooplankton has been
established from extensive studies carried out in our laboratory during
the past 25 years. Recently, the presence of the V. cholerae bacteria
in cargo ship ballast water has been reported, suggesting international
dissemination of V. cholerae via aquatic organisms, namely plankton, in
the ballast water that is discharged in harbors remote from the
original source of the ballast water. Our work on ballast water
suggests that V. cholerae is present in, and on copepods (plankton) in
the ballast water of ships entering Chesapeake Bay from ports of origin
elsewhere in the world. Copepods, a dominant group of the zooplankton
community in riverine and brackish water, have a characteristic
seasonal distribution in size and species and can carry a large number
of V. cholerae, enough to cause cholera even if only 1-10 copepods are
ingested via drinking water.
Filtering water at the time of collection, and just before
drinking, has been successful in removing cyclopes, a planktonic stage
of the guinea worm, which causes dracunculiasis, a serious a life-
threatening and common disease in many countries of Africa. The worm is
removed using a nylon net to filter out the plankton which carry the
intermediate stage of the worm. Filtration is so successful that it is
now recommended as an effective method for preventing dracunculiasis.
By drinking water with cyclopes (plankton) in the water, a person
serves as the active host in whom the intermediate stage develops to
the adult migrating worm. Although boiling water prior to drinking will
kill the plankton, cyclopes, and, therefore, the guinea worm larvae, it
is a time-consuming procedure and expensive as well. In a country like
Bangladesh, where fuel wood is in very short supply, boiling water, an
effective practice as it is, is not done because of the lack of fuel
wood. Furthermore, boiling water is not socially acceptable in most
rural villages of Africa, a situation that also prevails in Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, a majority of the population in the villages still
depends on untreated surface water for household consumption. Surface
water taken from ponds and rivers is a preferred source of drinking
water, for reasons of taste, convenience, or a local belief that
``quality'' water is ``natural,'' i.e., not chemically treated. A
family and neighborhood study of cholera transmission demonstrated that
those who used water from sources known to contain cholera bacteria,
for cooking, bathing, or washing, but used water for drinking that did
not show the presence of bacteria by standard culture methods, had the
same rate of infection as those who used V. cholerae 01 culture
positive water for drinking. Once the index case is reported, it is
most likely that further spread in the family takes place via water or
other means, such as direct contact, which may not be prevented even if
the water brought into the house is free of V. cholerae 01. Moreover,
during severe flooding, which occurs almost every year, there are some
areas of Bangladesh that experience reduction to conditions of mere
survival, i.e., even the barest necessities become difficult to obtain
and building fires to boil water is simply not possible.
Therefore, we proposed an intervention at the index case level,
which would help prevent the release of large numbers of bacteria into
the environment when sanitary latrines are not available. The
importance of safe water for all household purposes, i.e., cooking,
bathing, washing, and drinking cannot be over emphasized. When
consumption of surface water cannot be avoided, particularly during
flooding or other natural disasters which occur every year in
Bangladesh, a simple method that is effective in reducing the number of
V. cholerae will be very useful. In addition, the recently recognized
problem of very high concentrations of arsenic present in Bangladesh
ground water, i.e., in shallow tube well water, forced large numbers of
people to avoid ground water, and switch back to drinking water from
rivers and ponds, i.e., surface water. Thus, a simple filtration method
that we devised, using cloth filters, may become even more important in
protecting economically destitute villagers from becoming ill from
contaminated water.
Based on our accumulated work on cholera over twenty-five years, we
hypothesized that a simple and inexpensive filtration method to sieve
out plankton colonized with V. cholerae should curb, or at least
reduce, cholera epidemics. This presumes filtration will reduce the
numbers of V. cholerae per volume of drinking water, whether from
ponds, rivers or other natural water supplies, to numbers below a
potentially infectious dose. Extensive experiments were conducted in
our laboratory at the University of Maryland and the results showed
that V. cholerae attached to copepods can be filtered out of the water
using sari material of a type that is readily available in nearly every
household in villages of Bangladesh. Different kinds of sari material
were tested, in addition to a nylon net of maximum pore size of 200 m
(the same nylon net as used to control dracunculiasis in Africa. The
emphasis in our study focussed on sari material, because it was our aim
to develop a method of filtration that bore no additional cost to
villagers for household water filtration. It was not intended to
eliminate cholera by our method, but to reduce the number of cholera
cases to a minimum.
Results of experiments showed that either four layers of sari cloth
of the commonest type used by Bangladeshi villagers, or one layer of
nylon net, retained 99% of V. cholerae since the cells are attached to
zooplankton. The sari material used to filter contaminated water, i.e.,
to separate out suspended particles, including copepods, can be washed
and air-dried each time after use for repeated use. Complete drying of
the filtering material is desirable, with four hours, or more than 24
hours, required for drying, depending on the humidity, i.e., monsoon
vs. non-monsoon season. From results obtained in our preliminary
studies in Bangladesh, four hours of sun exposure or 24 hours of air
drying in a shaded environment was most effective. The decontamination
procedure was even more effective if the sari cloth was thoroughly
rinsed with water before drying. However, during the monsoon in
Bangladesh, when the humidity is ca. 100%, fully complete drying is not
usually achieved. Considering such situations, thorough washing of each
filter after every use is recommended, using the same river or pond
water to remove concentrated plankton from the filter, followed by
rinsing with filtered water and drying when possible. There is no
hazard or risk associated with application of this method, either to
participants or to workers carrying out the study.
A concept of filtration acceptable to villagers is the basis of
this project. So after demonstrating that simple filtration using
Bangladeshi household material can reduce the number of cells of V.
cholerae 01 (reduction of 2 logs or more in number of V. cholerae
cells) in surface water. We are now carrying out a community-based
study targeted toward undeserved rural populations and aimed at cholera
intervention involving direct community participation. We have
undertaken this project in collaboration with the International Centre
for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR, B) and funded by
the National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institutes of
Health. The field trials began a year and half ago in Bangladesh. Most
importantly, mothers of households are responsible for implementation,
thereby, ensuring ultimate success.
Field workers, who explain and educate the villagers and the
importance of filtration, demonstrate how to use the filter effectively
and how to decontaminate the filter after each use. This training is
accomplished by one-on-one family visits, as well as through the use of
colorful posters, community discussions, and ``town hall meetings.''
Those villagers using the filtration devices for six months are
included in a follow-up survey, conducted to evaluate efficacy of the
devices, as well as compliance in the use of the devices. The second
phase study began last month, involving 12,000 families and
approximately 60,000 individuals. Questionnaires, data recording,
methods for education about filtration, and related matters from the
first phase were carefully reviewed, with special focus on effective
education and distribution of the filtering devices, to ensure
successful completion of the full field trials.
Preliminary results from the first phase of the study indicate that
filtration reduces the number of cases of cholera significantly, when
sari or nylon net is used to filter household water, compared to the
number of cholera cases in the control villages. From September to
December, 1999, the number of cholera cases was <0.5/1000 in both the
sari and nylon net filtration groups and >1.5/1000 in the control
group, where filtration was not done, a three-fold reduction of cholera
cases among filter users. An important finding from the first phase of
the study was the acceptability of filtration of household water by the
villagers. It was found that 90% of the villagers were in compliance
with the instructions for using the filters. Only 0.6% of the
population were non-compliant, i.e., didn't use the filters. Of the
remaining population, a few families switched to tube well water and
some had migrated to other villages.
Clearly, there is willingness among the villagers to use filtration
as an intervention method to prevent cholera. Finally, we are excited
and delighted by the promising results from the first phase of the
project. Filtration, using sari cloth and/or nylon net, is effective in
reducing the number of cholera cases, the villagers in Bangladesh are
in excellent compliance (far better than expected), and the number of
cholera cases for those who filter their water is significantly less
than for those who do not filter.
I take this opportunity to mention here that during the past couple
of years I have been asked whether the sari filtration method can be
useful in any other countries, employing the local material of that
country. It is a very simple method and if a locally available material
can fulfill the requirement, it should work. Increasingly, people are
using bottled water. Sadly, there are not that many fortunate people in
the world who have access to, or can afford to buy bottled water for
their daily drinking water needs. A rural villager in Bangladesh earns
about $2.00 per day. A day's wages may buy only one or two bottles of
water!
In conclusion, safe drinking water is a global necessity. In the
years ahead, both developed and developing countries will consider the
supply of drinking water as valuable and vital as we view petroleum
resources on a global scale today.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you, Dr. Huq.
We will now hear from Mr. Peter Lockery, senior advisor of
water sanitation, environmental health, with CARE.
STATEMENT OF PETER LOCKERY
Mr. Lockery. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I
am Peter Lockery. I am senior advisor on water sanitation and
environmental health. Thank you for the opportunity to present
testimony this morning on behalf of CARE.
What I will try to do in our testimony is to give a flavor
of the international debate that is going on about water
sanitation and environmental health. I have in my testimony
tried to respond to what I expect are the most frequently asked
questions.
The first question is why is water critical to poverty
reduction? Well, closer and more secure access to water and
sanitation save large amounts of time and energy in collecting
water and in finding a place to defecate. Just so my colleague
over there does not have a monopoly on the show and tell, I
brought along this morning a gagro from Nepal. This is a vessel
commonly used in Nepal for collecting water, and women walk
quite often several miles to collect all the water they need.
Just imagine carrying that up and down hills several times a
day.
The other issue I mentioned in my comment was finding a
place to defecate. Remember that 3 billion people in the world
don't have an adequate place to defecate. They do not have
adequate sanitation. That means for a lot of women in the
world, they are limited to defecating at dusk or at dawn. Those
are the only times when they feel secure and can find the
privacy necessary.
The second reason why water is critical to poverty
reduction is water can be used for horticulture, household
livestock production, and in supporting microenterprise, such
as brickmaking and pottery. Going back to Nepal, if you go into
the hills there, you will find water buffalo in many hill
villages. They are not native of hill villages, they live on
the plains, but if you can get water, people can keep them in
the hills.
The third reason why water is critical is in urban areas
particularly, improved water supplies can be much cheaper than
water vendors. Recent studies show that water vendor supplies
cost 4 to 10 times what a pipe water supply would cost.
Finally, improved water and sanitation reduces the burden
of water and excreta-related diseases. Remember that 1 child
every 10 seconds, 2 to 3 million children per year, dies from
diarrhea.
The second question is why are hygiene and sanitation
important? Well, studies show that sanitation, hygiene
promotion and water quantity have a greater impact on the
incidence of diarrhea than water quality. In our sanitation and
family education project in Bangladesh, we didn't provide any
water and sanitation hardware; we simply focused on hygiene
promotion. The results in the incidence of diarrhea, a
reduction in the incidence of diarrhea, were dramatic.
Finally, I make the point on this point of hygiene and
sanitation that people want toilets for other reasons than
health. They want them for privacy, convenience, safety, and
dignity, rather than health, in many cases.
The next question is how should water be managed? I think
what is coming out now in the international consensus is at the
lowest appropriate level, possibly by the users themselves, and
the most important lesson that has been learned over the last
25 years is putting people at the center and recognizing their
right to affordable access to safe water and sanitation, and
their right to participate in decisionmaking.
Imagine yourself in the desert north of Timbuktu. You are
standing next to a deep well with a group of pastoralists,
nomadic Arabs dressed in indigo-dyed cloth. They are
complaining because the concrete lining of the well is
beginning to collapse. Why? Because following tradition, they
tried to deepen the well when it dried and undermined the
lining. The project manager has explained to the pastoralists
what happens when they deepen the well without putting in
additional lining, but it is too late, the damage has been
done. You realize that the project needs to meet and discuss
with the pastoralists before the wells are constructed so that
issues such as location and well maintenance can be decided.
But there is a problem here. Which pastoralists use which
wells?
In this society, only men and boys go to the wells. You ask
to speak to some women, some families. You are taken to a
typical tented camp some miles from the well. You crawl into a
tent and spend an hour talking to a family. The man's wife does
most of the talking. She is probably illiterate, but
nevertheless wise and thoughtful in her responses. You learn a
great deal about their culture and society, about their hopes
and aspirations. You also learn that they only move camp about
twice per year. They go north in the fall and south in the
spring, following the grass for their animals. They use one
group of wells in the winter and one group in the summer. So,
yes, if they were asked, groups of families would try to manage
the wells and prevent damage.
My final point concerns payment. Two years ago, I was
visiting a project in Mozambique. We were in a village, and the
village maintenance team had removed their hand pump from the
borehole and were carrying out repairs. There seemed to be a
rather large number of people present for just one village
maintenance team. I asked who these people were. My colleague
inquired and was told there were maintenance teams from two
adjacent villages. When the hand pump was installed, these two
adjacent villages had contributed parts of the cost so that
should their own hand pump fail, they would have the right to
use the hand pump in the village we were visiting.
These are poor subsistence farmers, and they value
boreholes very highly, being the only source of water in the
dry season. They were ready to invest, if given the
opportunity, and have taken full responsibility for all normal
operation and maintenance costs. What they needed was some
initial assistance with the capital investment. In fact, the
capital investment was provided by USA, because this was a
U.S.-funded project. They needed that initial leg up, but the
rest they were prepared to do for themselves.
Mr. Chairman, thank you once again for the opportunity to
appear at this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Peter Lockery follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF PETER LOCKERY, SENIOR ADVISER ON WATER,
SANITATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CARE, CARE
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my name is Peter
Lockery. I am CARE's Senior Adviser on Water, Sanitation and
Environmental Health. Thank you for the opportunity to present
testimony this morning on behalf of CARE.
My testimony will briefly describe CARE's history and involvement
with the provision of drinking water and sanitation. It then reviews
the current situation and trends in water resources and in access to
safe drinking water and sanitation that inform CARE's programming. The
final section examines lessons learned by responding to a series of key
questions:
Why is water critical to poverty reduction?
Why are hygiene and sanitation important?
How should water be managed?
Who should pay for water?
Why is gender important?
Incorporated in the final section are brief descriptions of two
CARE projects that serve to illustrate the points made on hygiene and
integrated water resources management respectively.
CARE
CARE was founded in 1945 to assist in the post-war reconstruction
of Europe. Today CARE is one of the world's largest relief and
development organizations, with programs spanning the relief to
development continuum of humanitarian assistance in the areas of
agriculture and natural resources, basic and girls' education, health
(including reproductive health, children's health, and water,
sanitation and environmental health), and small economic activity
development. Since 1945, CARE has helped more than one billion needy
people in 125 countries worldwide.
CARE has carried out water and sanitation activities for forty-
three years, reaching an estimated 10 million people in 20,000
communities in more than 30 countries, through an investment of over
U.S. $250 million. CARE's current portfolio includes 63 projects with
significant water and sanitation activities. The projects are located
in a total of 29 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In FY99,
program expenses on water and sanitation exceeded $29m, including $17m
on emergency and rehabilitation and $12m on development. Funding comes
from multi and bi-lateral agencies, host governments, private
corporations and individuals, and the communities served.
CARE's approach to water and sanitation activities reflects the
organization's breadth of experience and expertise. During the 1960s,
CARE focused on the provision of water supply hardware to poor rural
communities in the developing world. As CARE experience grew over the
next thirty years, other components such as toilet construction,
watershed protection, and health and hygiene education were gradually
introduced. Most recently, the emphasis has been on those elements that
ensure sustainability and impact. Although most CARE projects are
rural, in the 1990s CARE has undertaken an increasing number of urban
projects. These include water supply, drainage, on-site sanitation and
sewer construction, and solid waste management.
CURRENT SITUATION AND TRENDS
``The world faces severe and growing challenges to maintaining
water quality and meeting the rapidly growing demand for water
resources. New sources of water are increasingly expensive to exploit,
limiting the potential for expansion of new water supplies. Water used
for irrigation, the most important use of water in developing
countries, will have to be diverted to meet the needs of urban areas
and industry but must remain a prime engine for agricultural growth.
Waterlogging, salinization, groundwater mining, and water pollution are
putting increased pressure on land and water quality. Pollution of
water from industrial waste, poorly treated sewage, and runoff of
agricultural chemicals, combined with poor household sanitary
conditions, is a major contributor to disease and malnutrition.''
1
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Rosegrant, Mark W., Water Resources in the Twenty-First
Century: Challenges and Implications for Action; Food, Agriculture, and
the Environment, Discussion Paper 20; IFPRI 1997
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Caught between growing demand for freshwater on one hand and
limited and increasingly polluted water supplies on the other, many
developing countries face difficult choices. Rising demands for water
for irrigated agriculture, domestic consumption, and industry are
forcing stiff competition over the allocation of scarce water
resources.
Water Resources
Although water appears to be abundant, less than 3 percent of the
world's water is freshwater, and most of this is either in the ground
or in the form of ice. Lakes and rivers account for only 0.014 percent
of all water. Enough precipitation falls each year on the land surface
of the earth to cover the United States to a depth of 15 feet or to
fill all lakes, rivers and reservoirs fifty times over, but about two-
thirds is lost to evaporation and more than half of the remainder flows
unused to the sea.2 Rainfall is also highly variable; the
same area can experience droughts one year and floods the next.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Seregeldin, I., Towards Sustainable Management of Water
Resources. The World Bank. 1995
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With continuing growth in global population coupled with the demand
for rising levels of consumption associated with expanding economic
activity, freshwater is becoming an increasingly scarce resource. In
many countries, particularly developing countries with high levels of
population growth and low or variable rainfall, the situation is fast
reaching crisis proportions. The increasing effects of climate change
are now starting to exacerbate the situation. Table 1 illustrates the
decline in per capita availability of freshwater by region and in
selected countries.
A country or region will experience periodic water stress when the
annual supply of renewable freshwater supplies fall below 1,700 m\3\
per person. The global average is about 7,400 m\3\ but withdrawal only
amounts to about 9 percent or 680 m\3\ per person. This low level of
withdrawal reflects the losses to evaporation and floods.
Table 1
Decline in per capita availability by region and in selected countries,
2000-2025 predicted
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Per capita water
availability (m\3\ per
Region Example country person per year)
-------------------------
2000 2025
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Africa........................................ 4,500 2,500
Ethiopia...................................... 2,400 1,000
Kenya......................................... 600 200
Morocco....................................... 900 500
South Africa.................................. 1,100 800
Asia.......................................... 3,400 2,300
India......................................... 1,400 800
Pakistan...................................... 600 200
China......................................... 1,900 1,500
Jordan........................................ 100 100
Uzbekistan.................................... 2,300 1,600
Australia & Oceania........................... 75,900 61,400
Europe........................................ 3,900 3,900
Russia........................................ 29,000 30,600
Poland........................................ 1,200 1,100
N. America.................................... 15,400 12,500
Jamaica....................................... 3,000 2,200
S. America.................................... 33,400 24,100
Guyana........................................ 291,000 230,000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the
World, Stockholm Environmental Institute 1997
Countries are often dependent on international agreements with
neighboring countries for water since approximately 15 percent of all
countries receive more than 50 percent of their available water from
countries situated upstream. The potential for tension and conflict
between nations is clear.
Where planning and management of water resources are ineffective
and uncoordinated, it places a major constraint on the reduction of
poverty. Poor institutions at all levels from the state to the
household have the greatest difficulty in establishing their claims to
water. This exclusion needs to be addressed in the management and
allocation of water, but political patronage frequently results in
decisions driven more by expediency than efficiency or equity.
Drinking Water and Sanitation Coverage
One billion poor people are excluded from their right to basic
water services. Almost two and a half billion do not have access to
sanitation and are forced to live in degrading and unhealthy
environments. Three million children die each year from diarrhea
related disease, and yet the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(1989) is clear on a child's right to clean drinking water and freedom
from the dangers of environmental pollution. Water is central to the
lives of women, and yet they are almost invariably excluded from
decisions regarding its management and allocation.
Statistics on water and sanitation are produced by the Joint
Monitoring Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the
United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) based on data reported by 152
countries. Table 2 combines the results for the 40 most populous
countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and compares the
preliminary 1999 results with the results in 1970, 1980, and 1990.
Table 3 shows the preliminary 1999 results subdivided by region.
Table 2.
Drinking water and sanitation coverage (%) for Africa, Asia and Latin America combined, subdivided into urban
and rural (1970-1999)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Year 1970 1980 1990 1999
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Urban water................................................. 65 74 82 92
Rural water................................................. 13 33 50 71
Urban sanitation............................................ 54 50 67 81
Rural sanitation............................................ 9 13 20 31
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 3.
Drinking water and sanitation coverage subdivided by region, 1999
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Percentage with access Number unserved
Population -------------------------- (millions)
Region (millions) -------------------------
Safe water Sanitation Safe water Sanitation
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Africa......................................... 784 62 63 302 289
Latin America & Caribbean...................... 519 83 74 87 137
Asia........................................... 3,683 83 46 627 2,003
Total.......................................... 4,986 80 52 1,016 2,429
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 2 shows a pattern of steady progress over the last three
decades, but there is still a huge task ahead because many people
remain without services. Good progress has been made in water. In Asia,
the percentage of the population with access to safe water has doubled
over the last 20 years to 83 percent. In Africa, by contrast, over one
third of the population remains without access to safe water, coverage
rising from 45 to 62 percent since 1980.
The figures for sanitation are worse than those for water in almost
all regions. Sanitation coverage has increased more slowly, and the
numbers unserved are much larger. 2 billion of the 2.4 billion people
lacking adequate sanitation live in Asia. In India, for example, where
major improvements have been achieved in water supply, less than 31
percent of the population have adequate sanitation.
Although the figures for urban areas are higher than those for
rural areas, almost all the world's population growth in the coming
years will be in poor urban areas in developing countries. The demand
for urban water and sanitation will reflect the population growth and
will be increasingly difficult to satisfy.
Many poor urban dwellers live in informal settlements around major
cities. They are particularly vulnerable because they normally lack
legal title to the land they live on and have little in the way of
community organization or political voice to demand an adequate service
level. Existing services are often poorly maintained or inoperable:
losses of water in excess of 50 percent are common and water may not
reach the extremities of the piped system due to lack of pressure.
Sewers may be blocked, damaged or non-existent and will typically
discharge to a water course without treatment. This is the situation
for millions of people. Ironically, they often have to pay private
water vendors much higher prices than the price of water from the piped
city supply.
Coverage figures in some countries are also affected by
contamination of drinking water with natural or man-made substances
that can threaten health. An example attracting global attention is the
high concentration of arsenic in groundwater in Bangladesh. This
affects large areas of the country, with between 10 and 60 million
estimated to be at risk.3
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ British Geological Survey, Arsenic Study Bangladesh, 1999.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
lessons learned
Why is water critical to poverty reduction?
Poor people themselves consistently place lack of water as one of
their main poverty indicators and give it top priority in their own
visions of the future. The poor are the most vulnerable to changes in
the availability of water resources and are the least able to cope with
change. If there is a failure to find solutions to water resources
management and environmental sanitation, their capacity to achieve
long-term livelihood security, including a healthy and secure living
environment, is substantially reduced.
Water and sanitation services attack poverty at the household level
in four main ways:
Closer and more secure access to water and sanitation save
large amounts of time in collecting water, and in finding a
place to defecate.
Water can be used for horticulture, household livestock
production, and in supporting micro-enterprise such as brick
making and pottery.
Particularly in urban areas, improved water supplies can be
much cheaper than water vendors.
Improved water and sanitation reduce the burden of water and
excreta-related diseases.
Good water resources management can often provide advance warning
of floods and promote flood preparedness to mitigate the effects of
flooding. The poor that are forced by circumstances to live in marginal
areas within flood plains are the direct beneficiaries. Floods are the
most common natural disaster and cause the greatest number of deaths
and the most damage. Flood related deaths are not simply caused by
drowning and direct injury but also by associated diseases and famine.
Assets including land and livestock are degraded or lost.
Poor people also rely on the natural environment to a far greater
extent than richer people do, so they benefit from the sustained
availability of natural resources of all sorts, such as fish stocks.
Why are hygiene and sanitation important?
Water-related diseases including diarrhea are the single largest
cause of human sickness and death. Deaths from diarrheal disease have
decreased over the last decade, but it is estimated that one child dies
every ten seconds from this cause.4 The water-related
diseases that afflict the poor are mainly infectious and parasitic
diseases. There are four main types:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Esrey, S. et al. Health Benefits from Improvements in Water
Supply and Sanitation. Technical Report No.66, Water and Sanitation For
Health Project , Arlington, VA.
Fecal-oral infections, which mainly cause diarrhea and include
cholera, typhoid and dysentery. They can be spread by
contaminated water or, more often, by poor hygiene. More than
90 percent of the health benefit of water supply stems from its
impact on this group.
Skin and eye infections, including trachoma, an important
cause of blindness, are also associated with poor hygiene.
Various worm infections, particularly bilharzia that is caught
by wading in water contaminated with excreta and infested with
snails.
Diseases spread by insects such as mosquitoes that breed in
water.
Improvements in water supply, sanitation and hygiene are important
barriers to the water-related infectious and parasitic diseases.
Research carried out by Esrey and Habicht 5, and Esrey et al
6 in a range of development contexts showed that safe
excreta disposal led to a reduction of childhood diarrhea of up to 36
percent. Handwashing, food protection and improvements in domestic
hygiene, brought a reduction in infant diarrhea of 33 percent. In
contrast, improving water quality alone produced limited reductions in
childhood diarrhea of 15-20 percent. Reductions in other diseases, such
as bilharzia (77 percent), ascariasis (29 percent) and trachoma (27-50
percent) are also related to better sanitation and hygiene practices.
Only reduction in guinea worm can be totally ascribed to the quality of
water.7
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Esrey, S., and Habicht, J., Epidemiological Evidence for Health
Benefits from Improved Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries,
Epidemiological Reviews, 1, 117-128, 1986.
\6\ Esrey, S.A., Potash, J.B., and Schiff, C. Effects of Improved
Water Supply on Ascariasis, Diarrhea, Dracunculiasis, Hookworm
Infection, Schistosomiasis and Trachoma, Bulletin of the World Health
Organization 69(5): 609-621. 1991
\7\ Van Wijk,C., Murre,T., revised Esrey, S. Motivating better
hygiene behavior: Importance for public health mechanisms of change.
UNICEF, New York. 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Studies of the effects of water, sanitation, and hygiene
interventions show that the greatest improvements are achieved when the
interventions occur together. Besides reductions in diarrhea, there are
improvements in nutritional status, including the reduction in the
prevalence of stunting and wasting of children, as well as savings in
time and energy expenditure.8
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Esrey,S.A. Sustaining Health from Water and Sanitation Systems,
Proceedings of 21st WEDC Conference, Kampala, Uganda. 1995.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Better sanitation not only reduces the risk of disease transmission
but also provides privacy, convenience, safety and dignity. Many
people, particularly women, are willing to pay for improvements in
sanitation for these reasons rather than health. Access to a toilet at
home reduces women's and girls' vulnerability, while the availability
of toilets at school can be a strong factor in encouraging girls to
attend.
How should water be managed?
``As populations grow and water use per person rises, demand for
freshwater is soaring. Yet the supply of freshwater is finite and
threatened by pollution. To avoid a crisis, many countries must
conserve water, pollute less, manage supply and demand, and slow
population growth.'' 9
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Hinrichsen, D., Robey,B., and Upadhyay, U.D. Solutions for a
Water-Short World, Population Reports, Series M, No. 14. John Hopkins
University School of Public Health, Population Information Program,
September 1998.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conservation and management of freshwater supplies in the face of
growing demand from population growth, irrigated agriculture,
industries and cities will require coordinated responses to problems at
local, national, and international levels.
Local initiatives show that water can be used more efficiently.
When communities and municipalities manage their freshwater resources,
they also manage other natural resources better and improve sanitation.
This is because freshwater resource management requires soil
conservation, forestry management, and control of pollution from
excreta, agricultural runoff, industrial effluent and solid waste. At
the national and international levels, especially in water-short
regions with dense populations, adopting a watershed or river basin
management perspective is a needed alternative to uncoordinated water-
management policies by separate jurisdictions.
This approach, known as integrated water resources management
(IWRM) has been advocated widely as a means to incorporate the multiple
competing and conflicting uses of water resources.
AGUA demonstrates another aspect of water management and the most
important lesson learned over the last 25 years. The importance of
putting people at the center and recognizing their right to affordable
access to safe water and sanitation and to participate in decision-
making. The rights, responsibilities and roles of individual households
and communities need to be defined within an institutional framework
for participatory planning and management. There need to be strategies
for increasing awareness and technical, managerial and administrative
capacity at community and local government levels. Particular attention
should be paid to the needs, roles and skills of women and indigenous
communities as critical actors in safeguarding and monitoring water
resources.
Who should pay for water?
How to finance water and sanitation services has been the subject
of much debate over the last decade. Many governments have provided
these basic services, bearing both the capital and the operating costs
and charging little or nothing to the users. We have learned from world
wide experience that services provided freely or at very low cost are
not respected or conserved. Resources for proper operation and
maintenance are often lacking, and there is insufficient funding for
further capital investment. This approach can be summed up as ``free
service means no service'' 10. These concerns, together with
concerns over efficient allocation, have led to the recognition of
water as an economic good.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council. Vision 21:
A Shared Vision for Hygiene, Sanitation and Water Supply and A
Framework for Action. Geneva. 2000
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Putting people at the center implies that a dialogue must be
started with users and communities at the initial stages of projects,
on levels of service, tariffs, revenue collection and administration of
services. Services with their associated costs are developed to meet
local conditions and user demand. Increasingly the evidence is that the
demand-responsive approach leads to better recovery of services and
more sustainable services. Consultations vary in complexity from small
villages to large cities but follow the same principle of responding to
demand.
Tariff structures are designed to ensure equity and to avoid the
rich benefiting at the expense of the poor. In the case of a regular
service, experience shows that recovering full operating costs and part
of the capital costs from poor people is often possible (because piped
water is normally cheaper and more convenient than water purchased from
a private vendor). In some cases a stepped tariff system may need to be
applied, so that subsidies can be generated for those who cannot afford
regular tariffs.
At the current level of investment in drinking water supply and
sanitation, universal coverage would be possible in 25 years but given
rich people's power and ability to attract funds to satisfy their
higher water demands, some experts predict that it may take up to 50
years 11. Economic and legislative instruments can focus
funds on the unserved and underserved, but efficient and effective
regulation, cost recovery, and monitoring are required to ensure
optimal application of these instruments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Department for International Development, UK. Addressing the
Water Crisis--Healthier and More Productive Lives for Poor People,
Consultation Document, March 2000.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why is gender important ?
Women have not been adequately involved in the decision-making and
planning of water and sanitation programs. This has undermined the
success of many programs. Women are frequently the main water carriers
and users. They are usually responsible for and influential over the
health of their children and families although they are not usually
expected to perform the role of decision-making at community level. It
should also be realized that the women in a community are not a
homogeneous group. For example, single women may have different
priorities to women with dependants or partners. The consideration
about gender is not just about discrimination against women. It refers
to the fact that men and women have different roles in society, and
that this frequently gives rise to different needs and priorities.
Without understanding the roles played by these different groups, or
the barriers to their participation in certain activities, incorrect
assumptions will be made by project planners.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you.
We will now hear from Ms. Adrianna Quintero, project
attorney for public health, Natural Resources Defense Council.
Ms. Quintero.
STATEMENT OF ADRIANNA I. QUINTERO
Ms. Quintero. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. My
name is Adrianna Quintero, and I do represent the Natural
Resources Defense Council. We appreciate your calling this
meeting. We are a nonprofit, public interest organization
working on environmental issues and public health issues across
the country and beginning to work around the world. With over
400,000 members nationwide, we look forward to the opportunity
of adding and contributing to the solutions to the need for
safe drinking water.
For humans everywhere, water means life. Water gives life,
and too often, through droughts, floods and disease, takes it
away. Inadequate sanitation, lack of access to clean sources,
and poor or no water treatment in rural and urban-perimeter
areas have resulted in a worldwide public health crisis. I need
not repeat some of the figures that we are all familiar with,
but they are, in fact, staggering and startling. Something must
be done before this does become a political crisis.
Most unfortunate are the children in the developing world
and those who have no voice here in Washington, or even in
their own nations' capitals. It is them who we have to think of
in making our decisions. The problem, however, affects us all.
In urban and surrounding areas worldwide, millions are forced
to subsist on drinking water contaminated with sewage, arsenic,
pesticides, or chemicals released from industrial plants. Large
cities in many nations regularly ration their water due to the
limited access to potable drinking water sources and an aging
infrastructure. Even here in the United States, where
thankfully our problems are nowhere near those in the
developing world, much of our Nation's drinking water
infrastructure is also aging and outdated, and many of our
drinking water sources are contaminated. In fact, daily, many
of our surface water and groundwater sources are being
contaminated by the inappropriate use of pesticides and
chemicals which have not been adequately tested, despite this
committee's, Mr. Chairman, great efforts on the Food Quality
Protection Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996, which, Mr. Chairman,
was instrumental, brought the need for safe drinking water to
the forefront. The problem is this issue is still not in one of
the top rungs of the international and political agendas. It
needs to be an integral part of our political dialog.
There are solutions. Through increased coordination through
government and nongovernmental organizations, the U.S.
leadership, and through providing additional congressional
support and guidance and funding for agencies who work to
improve this problem, the need for global drinking water can
soon begin to improve. Over time we will save millions of
children's lives.
Additionally, ironically, as we talk about the need for
safe drinking water around the world, as Mr. Brown mentioned,
Congress is currently voting to extend the statutory deadline
set by the Safe Drinking Water Act for updating the U.S.
arsenic standard. The National Academy of Sciences does
continue to say that this is a public health need and that we
need to update the standards set back in 1942 when we had no
knowledge that arsenic could cause cancer. The EPA, however,
has repeatedly failed to meet imposed deadlines to update the
standard and continues to seek delays, despite the fact that
our standard is five times higher than the World Health
Organization's and the standard in many developing nations
worldwide. Further delay will only continue to put our
population at risk.
At the current 50-parts-per-billion standard, the National
Academy estimates that 1 out of 100 people are at risk of
getting cancer. This is an unacceptable risk and well over the
1 in 10,000 factor for cancer that EPA normally assigns to
toxins and contaminants.
The world looks to us as a role model, yet here we have
fallen far behind the curve in protecting our citizens from the
risks of arsenic. Any further delay sends the wrong message to
our citizens and the world and poses a significant health risk
to tens of millions of Americans.
The problem, of course, is much worse globally. With
millions of people in the midst of what has been termed the
largest mass chemical poisoning by drinking arsenic-laced well
water, primarily concentrated in Bangladesh, China, India,
Taiwan, and parts of South America, this extreme arsenic
poisoning is due to the use of well water that contains what is
apparently naturally occurring arsenic. This has caused an
epidemic of skin lesions, vascular and cardiac problems, and
widespread bladder, lung and skin cancer. We cannot wait for
further evidence. The problem is there, and something must be
done. There are solutions even to this tremendous problem.
Tapping new, clean wells can often lead to great successes.
Microbial contamination, of course, is one of the greatest
problems worldwide, and as we have discussed, any type of
improvement on treating water for microbial contaminants can
save millions of lives.
Problems, nevertheless, are there and must be addressed. We
are all familiar with the image of the child suffering the
painful effects of dehydration due to drinking contaminated
drinking water. Dehydration, which is generally the result of
diarrhea and dysentery due to Giardia, Cryptosporidium, cholera
and typhoid, often leads to death for too many children. We
must begin also by realizing that this type of contamination is
not a problem exclusive to foreign shores. Developed nations
like the United States also experience periodic outbreaks, such
as the Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and
several scares that we have had here in the DC area. Most
recently in Canada as well, the Walkerton, Ontario, tragedy
also provided a wakeup call to many for the risk of
contamination.
Even here, only recently have we imposed stricter standards
through the Safe Drinking Water Act to address the risk of
Cryptosporidium and other microbes in tap water. Nine out of
ten large U.S. water systems, including New York and San
Francisco, are still using water treatment technologies that
date from World War I and are not filtering their water.
In addition, we must consider the fact that while chlorine
has saved many lives, it is also ineffective against many
parasites and many types of infectious disease. Additionally,
recent toxicological studies have found evidence of potential
adverse reproductive effects from chlorination by-products.
Studies of pregnant women drinking chlorinated water and animal
studies have shown that this may cause certain birth defects,
spontaneous abortion, low birth weight and other effects. We
must consider this a real risk and look to alternatives such as
ozonation combined with granular activated carbon, membrane
filtration, or disinfection through ultraviolet light.
What is more, in working in the developing nations, we must
not limit ourselves to simply providing chlorination as a
solution. We must look to small-scale UV light systems and
other types of simple filtration that acknowledge the need for
chlorine removal.
NRDC commends the committee for focusing on this crucial
issue. The United States must assume a leadership role in
addressing the need for global safe drinking water so that we
may take these plans out of the meeting room and put them in
action. The solutions are available and workable. However, the
global community must recognize that this is a problem and must
make a concerted effort toward solving this problem.
Awareness of the global need and implications of failing to
act must also be brought to the forefront. As the chairman
mentioned earlier, there is the risk of having many of these
crops, which are grown with contaminated water and with
pesticides that are no longer allowed to be used here in the
United States, are being brought into our shores. This is an
era of globalization, and we must realize that these risks are,
in fact, very, very real.
Congressional leadership can also help bypass the
traditional and somewhat inefficient aid mechanisms.
In conclusion, NRDC thanks the committee for opening the
dialog on the need for safe global drinking water. We must
begin at home, educate our people on this need, and educate
others worldwide on the need to protect our existing sources
and to provide clean drinking water for all.
We look forward to working with Congress and the new
administration. Thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Adrianna I. Quintero follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF ADRIANNA I. QUINTERO, PROJECT ATTORNEY, NATURAL
RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL
INTRODUCTION
Good morning, my name is Adrianna Quintero, project attorney for
the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a national non-profit
public interest organization dedicated to protecting public health and
the environment with over 400,000 members nationwide. We appreciate the
opportunity to testify today on the global need for safe drinking
water.
For humans everywhere water means life. Water gives life and often,
through droughts and floods, takes it away. For many people in the
world today, however, it is water they drink that too often brings
death and disease. Inadequate sanitation, lack of access to clean water
sources and poor or no water treatment in rural and urban-perimeter
communities has resulted in a worldwide public health crisis.
One out of every four people on earth (1.2 billion) cannot drink
water without risk of disease or death. Every year approximately 4.6 to
6 million people or more will die from diarrhea and dysentery,
generally from waterborne disease-carrying organisms. Approximately
12,600 or more children will die each day. According to the United
Nations, ``given current trends, as much as two-thirds of the world
population in 2025 may be subject to high water stress.'' The
devastation most heavily affects children in the developing world who
often have no voice in Washington or world capitals.
The problem affects us all. In urban and surrounding areas
worldwide, millions are forced to subsist on drinking water
contaminated with sewage, arsenic, pesticides, or chemicals released
from industrial plants. Large cities in many nations must regularly
ration their water due to the limited access to potable sources and
aging distribution systems. Even here in the United States, while
thankfully our water generally is safer than that in many developing
nations, much of the nation's drinking water infrastructure is also
aging and outdated and many of our drinking water sources are
contaminated.
The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996 brought the need for safe
drinking water to the forefront and many in this Committee were
instrumental in its passing. The issue, however, has not made it to the
top rung on the national or international political agenda. We must
make global drinking water an issue in the international political
dialogue.
The problem is huge, but there are solutions. The increased
coordination of governments and non-governmental organizations, US
leadership and additional congressional support and funding for
agencies working to improve global water quality and availability can,
over time, save millions of children's lives.
The Problems Affect Us on our Shores and Around the World
Ironically, as we talk about the tragic state of safe water around
the world, Congress is voting to extend the statutory deadline set by
the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 for updating the U.S.
arsenic standard. A 1999 report by the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) determined that arsenic in drinking water causes bladder, lung
and skin cancer, and may cause kidney and liver cancer. The study also
found that arsenic harms the central and peripheral nervous systems,
heart and blood vessels, and causes serious skin problems, including
pre-cancerous lesions and pigmentation changes. In addition, the NAS
report and peer-reviewed animal studies have found that arsenic also
may cause birth defects and reproductive problems.
The need for updating the standard, however, is long overdue. As it
stands, the U.S. standard for arsenic has not been updated since 1942,
before health officials knew that arsenic causes cancer. EPA has
repeatedly failed to meet court-imposed deadlines to update the
standard. This 58 year-old standard is currently five times higher than
the standard set by the World Health Organization and the standard in
many other countries. It must be reduced now. Further delay will only
continue to put the US population at risk. At the current level of 50
parts per billion, the NAS estimates that one out of 100 people are
risk getting cancer, an unacceptable risk, well over the one-in-10,000
risk factor for cancer that EPA normally assigns for toxins and
contaminants. The World looks to the U.S. for guidance. Here we have
fallen well behind the curve in protecting our citizens from the risks
of arsenic. Any further delay sends the wrong message to our citizens
and the world, and poses significant health risks to tens of millions
of Americans.
The problem is much worse globally with millions of people in the
midst of what has been termed the largest mass chemical poisoning by
drinking arsenic-laced well water. Primarily concentrated in
Bangladesh, India, China, Taiwan, and parts of South America, this
extreme arsenic poisoning is due to the use of well water that contains
what is apparently naturally-occurring arsenic. The arsenic has caused
an epidemic of skin lesions, vascular and cardiac problems, and
widespread bladder, lung, and skin cancer in the affected regions.
While the problem of arsenic contamination can be somewhat more
difficult to solve than microbial contamination, problems can be
avoided by tapping different cleaner water sources, or the use of well-
demonstrated on-site treatment.
Microbial Contamination
More than any other medical or public health advancement, public
health experts attribute more lives saved over the past 150 years in
the United States and other developed nations to the provision of
potable, treated water, bar none. Problems nevertheless persist. We are
all familiar with the image of the child suffering the painful effects
of dehydration due to drinking contaminated water. This microbial
contamination from parasites like E. Coli, Giardia, Cryptosporidium,
Shigella, V. Cholera, Typhoid, and other disease-carrying organisms
lead to an early death for too many children worldwide. The United
Kingdom Institute of Child Health estimates that in developing
countries the average child may suffer from diarrhea ten times per year
and one in ten will die before the age of five from diarrhea and
dehydration.
We must begin by realizing that microbial contamination is not a
problem exclusive to foreign shores. Developed nations themselves
experience periodic outbreaks of microbial disease, such as the
Cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA in 1993 that
sickened over 400,000 citizens and killed over 100, or the more recent
New York State county fair where numerous children where sickened. An
unofficial estimate by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates
that waterborne disease causes 940,000 illnesses and 900 deaths per
year in the U.S. In Canada, the Walkerton, Ontario tragedy earlier this
year has provided Canadians with a new awareness of the vital role
treatment facilities have for public health.
Even here in the US where the legislative and regulatory structure
provides us with a set of enforceable standards, only recently have
stricter measures to address Cryptosporidium and other microbes in tap
water been proposed. Nine out of ten big US water systems is still
using water treatment technologies that date from World War I. In
addition, while we have saved many lives through basic disinfection,
research now shows that our traditional methods of simple chlorination,
can pose substantial risks, including cancer risks. Chlorine is
ineffective against many parasites, and infectious disease caused by
long-understood microbial contaminants. Recent epidemiological and
toxicological studies have found evidence of potential adverse
reproductive effects from chlorination byproducts. Studies of pregnant
women drinking chlorinated water, and of animals have found that some
chlorination byproducts may cause certain birth defects spontaneous
abortions, low birth weight, and other effects. We must consider this
risk real as long as we continue to rely on chlorination as our primary
method of water purification, we must also explore treatment options
such as ozonation combined with granular activated carbon, membrane
filtration, or disinfection through ultraviolet light. Some filtration
systems available on a small scale in developing nations, however, can
provide rural communities with a filtration and purification system
that is simple to use and usually meets US drinking water standards.
One group, Industry for the Poor, produces and provides low-cost, easy-
to-use filters that provide (1) filtration, (2) chlorination, and (3)
chlorine removal. Other technologies, such as small scale UV light
disinfection, also are available for use in developing countries.
Where Do We Go From Here
NRDC commends the Committee for focusing on this crucial issue. The
United States must assume a leadership role in addressing the need for
global safe drinking water so that we may take these plans out of the
meeting room and put them into action. The solutions are available and
workable. For poorer countries the failure to enforce environmental
laws and address potable water needs stems from a need to commit
limited resources to more pressing problems. Through careful funding
initiatives this need not be true. For pennies per life improved or
saved, the global community could rescue millions of children from
misery or death from waterborne parasites with simple sanitation
improvements and existing, off-the-shelf water treatment and delivery
technologies.
Awareness of the global need and the implications of failing to
act, however, must be brought to the forefront through awareness-
building initiatives, funding programs, and executive actions. The US
must lead the world's awareness and public understanding in developed
nations and build an effective international coalition of religious,
health, environmental, medical, international relief, and work with
coalition non-governmental organization (NGO) partners and others to
resolve drinking water problems--now.
Even if such leadership were not our moral obligation--which we
believe it is--we must recognize that in this day of globalization and
international trade waterborne disease plaguing developing nations can
spread to developed nations. Imported foods can be grown or washed with
contaminated water, and waterborne disease that may reach developed
nations via travelers, ship ballast water, or by other means. As
citizens of developed nations travel to these regions of our world,
they can all bring the misery felt in less-developed nations to the
doorstep of the developed world.
Heads of state and other senior government officials from nations
in which drinking water problems are most severe should be called upon
to publicly discuss and assess the state of their water. An ongoing
monitoring system must be in place to encourage our progress towards
safe water for all.
Congressional leadership can also help bypass the traditional and
sometimes inefficient aid. The US must recognize that solutions likely
will vary with the community, but clearly will rely heavily upon
participation of the local population to encourage a sense of ``buy
in'' among local people in order to succeed. Awareness, however, must
begin at home. We must educate the US public about the need to take
action at home and encourage action abroad.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, NRDC thanks the Committee for opening the dialogue
on the need for safe global drinking water. Here in the US we must
continue to obligate EPA to comply with the requirements of the 1996
Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. With its implementation, the
U.S. will begin to achieve substantial public health gains and set an
example for less-developed nations worldwide.
Mr. Tauzin [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Quintero.
Finally, Ms. Payal Sampat representing the Worldwatch
Institute here in Washington, DC.
STATEMENT OF PAYAL SAMPAT
Ms. Sampat. Thank you.
Good morning to the remaining members of the committee. My
name is Payal Sampat, and I am a research associate at the
Worldwatch Institute. Worldwatch is an independent, nonprofit
organization based here in Washington, DC, and we conduct
research on global, environmental and development issues. Many
thanks for this opportunity to testify on the global need for
access to safe drinking water.
My research has focused on persistent forms of water
pollution, in particular the chemical contamination of
underground sources of water, or groundwater. Groundwater is
the primary source of drinking water for some 1.5 billion
people worldwide.
As my colleagues have pointed out, in much of the
developing world, microbial contamination of drinking water is
still the most urgent water quality concern. Over 1 billion
people on this planet do not have access to water that is
uncontaminated by pathogens. But developing nations and the
world as a whole are even less prepared to deal with a more
persistent and insidious threat to drinking water, which is the
contamination of water supplies by industrial and agricultural
chemicals. Consequently, some of the poorest nations in the
world now face a double burden. As they struggle to provide
their citizens with microbe-free water, they must also grapple
with the growing threat of toxic chemicals in their drinking
water supplies. My presentation will focus on this latter
threat; namely, the chemical contamination of drinking water.
There are four main points I would like to make. First, the
chemical contamination of water has increased as chemical use
and disposal has grown in both develop and industrial
countries. Second, there may be long lag times between the time
the chemical is consumed and the appearance of any health
effects. Third, chemicals are often found in combination, and
the health effects of consuming these mixtures are still not
well understood. Finally, an effective policy response will
require preventing chemical pollution in the first place,
rather than trying to depend on costly, end-of-pipe water
treatment.
Several studies indicate that the concentrations of certain
chemicals in our water supplies have increased as the use of
the chemical has grown. One example comes from nitrogen
fertilizer. In northern China, for example, where fertilizer
use has been rising, more than half of the wells tested in 1994
had nitrate concentrations that exceeded World Health
Organization drinking water guidelines. Reports from regions as
diverse as Sri Lanka, Romania, Mexico and the United States as
well show similar nitrate pollution of groundwater. When
consumed at unsafe levels by infants, nitrate can block the
oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood, and this can cause
suffocation and even death. In adults, nitrate has been linked
to miscarriages in women and to an increased risk of certain
kinds of cancers.
Some of the greatest shocks are beginning to be felt in
places where chemical use and disposal has climbed in recent
decades, but where the most basic measures to shield water have
not been taken. In India, for example, 22 major industrial
zones were surveyed in the mid-1990's, and groundwater in every
one of them was found to be unfit for drinking and contaminated
by a toxic brew of chemicals. Because many of the chemicals now
commonly found in our water supplies do not degrade easily,
their levels may, in fact, accumulate over time.
After half a century of spraying DDT in the eastern Indian
States of West Bengal and Bihar, this chemical was detected in
groundwater at levels several thousands times higher than what
is considered an acceptable dose. And these persistent
chemicals may remain in water even after their original use has
been terminated. In the United States the soil fumigant DBCP
was banned in 1977, but it still turns up in our water
supplies. In the San Joaquin Valley in California, a third of
the wells sampled between 1971 and 1988 had levels at least 10
times higher than the maximum allowed for drinking water.
My second point is that there may be long lag times between
consuming a chemical and the appearance of any health effects,
and an example of this comes from Bangladesh, which Ms.
Quintero just talked about. Concerned about the risks of water-
borne disease, international aid agencies launched a massive
well-drilling program in the 1970's to tap groundwater instead
of polluted surface water supplies. At this point, 95 percent
of the country uses groundwater for drinking. However, the
sediments of the Ganges aquifers are naturally rich in arsenic,
thus exposing the population to the heavy metal.
Because the effects of chronic arsenic poisoning can take
up to 15 years to appear, the epidemic was not recognized until
it was well under way. The first signs were skin sores and
lesions, and later stages of arsenic poisoning can lead to
gangrene, skin and bladder cancer, damage to vital organs, and
eventually death. Experts estimate that arsenic in drinking
water could threaten the health of between 20 and 70 million
Bangladeshis and between 6- and 30 million people in West
Bengal in India.
My third point is that chemicals are often found in
combination, and the health effects of consuming these mixtures
are not well understood. Most countries do not have water
quality standards for all of the hundreds of individual
pesticides in use. The U.S. EPA, for instance, has drinking
water standards for just 33 of these compounds, to say nothing
of the infinite variety of toxic blends now trickling into our
water supplies. The USGS detected multiple pesticides in
groundwater at nearly a quarter of the sites sampled across the
United States between 1993 and 1995. In some States such as
Washington State, more than two-thirds of water samples
contained multiple pesticides.
Similarly, the USGS found that 29 percent of wells near
urban areas in the United States contained multiple volatile
organic compounds. The lead researcher in the USGS study notes
that because current health criteria are based on exposure to a
single contaminant, the health implications of these mixtures
are not known. Exposure to a single VOC, volatile organic
compound, can be dangerous to human health when consumed even
in small concentrations. Another unpredictable element is the
interaction between these compounds and the chemicals commonly
used by utilities to disinfect water, such as chlorine.
This brings me to my final point, which is that prevention
of chemical pollution of water is key. Given how much damage
chemical pollution can inflict on public health, the
environment, and the economy once it gets into water, it is
critical that the emphasis be shifted from end-of-pipe
responses to preventing the damage in the first place. This is
done by protecting water sources and by using less chemicals in
the first place.
For example, the National Research Council estimates that
in the United States, between one-third and half of nitrogen
fertilizer applied to crops cannot be utilized by the plants,
and some of this leaches into groundwater. Experts at the
United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization say that in
many countries, pesticides could be applied at one-tenth
current amounts and still be effective. Research into and
support of less chemical-intensive agricultural and industrial
practices is an important step toward protecting the health of
the planet's people and the water they consume.
I will be happy to answer any questions, and, once again, I
thank you for this opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Payal Sampat follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF PAYAL SAMPAT, RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, WORLDWATCH
INSTITUTE
Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. My name is
Payal Sampat, and I am a research associate at the Worldwatch
Institute. Worldwatch is an independent, nonprofit environmental
research organization based here in Washington, DC. Our mission is to
foster a sustainable society in which human needs are met in ways that
do not threaten the health of the natural environment or future
generations. To this end, Worldwatch conducts interdisciplinary
research on global issues, the results of which are published and
distributed to decision-makers and the media.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify on ``The Global Need for
Access to Safe Drinking Water.'' At the Institute, I work primarily on
issues related to water quality. My research has focused on persistent
forms of water pollution, in particular, the chemical contamination of
underground sources of water, or groundwater. Groundwater is the
primary source of drinking water for some 1.5 billion people worldwide.
In much of the developing world, microbial contamination of
drinking water is still the most urgent water quality concern. By
latest estimates, some 1.3 billion people on this planet do not have
access to water that is uncontaminated by pathogens; not surprisingly,
polluted water is a leading cause of infectious disease in many
countries. But developing nations, and the world as a whole, are even
less prepared to deal with a more persistent and insidious threat to
drinking water, which is the contamination of water supplies by
industrial and agricultural chemicals. Consequently, some of the
poorest nations in the world now face a double burden: as they struggle
to provide their citizens with microbe-free water, they must also
grapple with the threat of toxic chemicals in their drinking water
supplies.
My presentation will focus on this latter threat, namely, chemical
contamination of drinking water.
There are four points I'd like to make in my presentation. First,
chemical contamination of water has increased as chemical use and
disposal have grown in both developing and industrial countries.
Second, there may be long lag times between consuming a chemical and
the appearance of any health effects. Third, chemicals are often found
in combination, and the health effects of consuming these mixtures are
not well understood. And fourth, an effective policy response will
require preventing water pollution in the first place, rather than
trying to depend on costly end-of-pipe water treatment, which is not
only costly, but in some cases, ineffective.
Some of the principal groups of chemicals detected in drinking
water include fertilizers, pesticides, volatile organic compounds (such
as chlorinated solvents and petrochemicals), and heavy metals. Most of
my examples refer to groundwater, since that is my primary area of
research, but surface water contamination by chemicals is equally
serious in many regions.
1. The incidence of chemical contamination of water has increased
as chemical use and disposal have grown. Several studies indicate that
the concentrations of certain chemicals in water supplies have
increased as their use has grown. One example is nitrogen fertilizer
use. In California's Central Valley, for example, nitrate levels in
groundwater increased 2.5 times between the 1950s and 1980s--a period
in which the region's fertilizer use grew 6-fold. In Northern China,
where fertilizer use has also been rising, more than half the wells
tested in 1994 had nitrate concentrations that exceeded the World
Health Organization (WHO) drinking water guideline. Reports from
regions as diverse as Sri Lanka, Romania, and Mexico, show similar
results. When nitrate is consumed at unsafe levels by infants, it can
block the oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood, causing suffocation
and death. In adults, nitrate has been linked to miscarriages in women,
and to an increased risk of certain kinds of cancers.
Some of the greatest shocks are beginning to be felt in places
where chemical use and disposal has climbed in the last few decades,
and where the most basic measures to shield groundwater have not been
taken. In India, for example, the Central Pollution Control Board
surveyed 22 major industrial zones in the mid-1990s and found that
groundwater in every one of them was unfit for drinking.
And because many of the chemicals now commonly found in our water
supplies do not degrade easily, their levels may accumulate over time.
After half a century of spraying in the eastern Indian states of West
Bengal and Bihar, for example, the Central Pollution Control Board
found DDT in groundwater at levels as high as 4,500 micrograms per
liter--several thousand times higher than what is considered an
acceptable dose. And persistent chemicals may remain in water long
after their original use. The soil fumigant DBCP (dibromochloropropane)
was banned in the United States in 1977, but it still lurks in the
country's water supplies. In the San Joaquin Valley of California where
DBCP was used intensively in fruit orchards, a third of the wells
sampled between 1971 and 1988 had levels that were at least 10 times
higher than the maximum allowed for drinking water.
2. There may be long lag times between consuming the chemical and
the appearance of any health effects. Until the early 1970s, rivers and
ponds supplied most of Bangladesh's drinking water. Concerned about the
risks of water-borne disease, international aid agencies launched a
well-drilling program to tap groundwater instead. By the early 1990s,
nearly 95 percent of Bangladesh's people got their drinking water from
tubewells.
However, the agencies, not aware that soils of the Ganges aquifers
are naturally rich in arsenic, did not test the sediment before
drilling tubewells. Because the effects of chronic arsenic poisoning
can take up to 15 years to appear, the epidemic was not recognized
until it was well under way. The first signs of arsenic poisoning
include skin sores and lesions; in later stages, the disease can lead
to gangrene, skin and bladder cancer, damage to vital organs, and
eventually, death.
Experts estimate that arsenic in drinking water could threaten the
health of between 20 to 70 million Bangladeshis and another 6 to 30
million people in West Bengal, India. As many as 1 million wells in the
region may be contaminated with the heavy metal at levels between 5 and
100 times the WHO drinking water guideline of 0.01 mg/liter.
3. Chemicals are often found in combination, and the health effects
of consuming these mixtures are not well understood. Most countries do
not have water quality standards for the many hundred individual
pesticides in use--the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has
drinking water standards for just 33 of these compounds--to say nothing
of the infinite variety of toxic blends now trickling into the
groundwater. For instance, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) detected
two or more pesticides in groundwater at nearly a quarter of the sites
sampled across the United States between 1993 and 1995. In the Central
Columbia Plateau aquifer, which lies under the states of Washington and
Idaho, more than two-thirds of water samples contained multiple
pesticides.
But there is some indication of possible additive or synergistic
surprises we can expect. When researchers at the University of
Wisconsin examined the effects of aldicarb, atrazine and nitrate blends
in groundwater--a mixture typically found beneath U.S. farms--they
found that ``more biological responses occur in the presence of
mixtures of common groundwater contaminants than if contaminants occur
singly.'' Fluctuation in concentrations of the thyroid hormone, for
example, is a typical response to mixtures, but not usually to
individual chemicals. Other research found that combinations of
pesticides increased the incidence of fetal abnormalities in the
children of pesticide sprayers.
Industrial compounds such as petrochemicals and solvents are also
typically found in combination. In tests conducted between 1985 and
1995, the USGS found 29 percent of wells near urban areas in the United
States contained multiple Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs); overall, a
total of 46 different kinds of these compounds turned up in
groundwater. But the lead researcher in the USGS study notes that
``because current health criteria are based on exposure to a single
contaminant, the health implications of these mixtures are not known.''
Exposure to a single VOC can be dangerous to human health when consumed
even in small concentrations. Women exposed to chlorinated solvents
were found to have a two-to four-fold higher incidence of miscarriages.
These compounds have also been linked to kidney and liver damage and
childhood cancers.
Another unpredictable element is the interaction between these
compounds and the chemicals commonly used by utilities to disinfect
water, such as chlorine.
4. Prevention is key. When chemicals are found in unpredictable
mixtures, rather than discretely, utilities will have to resort to
increasingly elaborate water treatment set-ups to make the water safe
for drinking. But given how much damage chemical pollution can inflict
on public health, the environment, and the economy, once it gets into
the water, it's critical that emphasis be shifted from end-of-pipe
responses to preventing the damage in the first place. This is done by
protecting water sources, and by using less chemicals in the first
place. For example, the National Research Council estimates that in the
United States, between a third and half of nitrogen fertilizer applied
to crops cannot be utilized by the plants. Experts at the United
Nations Food and Agricultural Organization say that in many countries,
pesticides could be applied at one-tenth current amounts and still be
effective. Research into less chemical-intensive agricultural and
industrial practices is an important step toward protecting the health
of the planet's people and the water they consume.
Mr. Chairman, I respectfully request that an article I authored on
the subject of global groundwater quality be submitted as part of the
hearing record to complement my own brief statements.
I would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you again for this
opportunity to testify.
Mr. Tauzin. Thank you, Ms. Sampat.
The Chair recognizes himself and then members in order.
Let me, first of all, thank you all for coming. This is, I
think, the final hearing of our committee scheduled for this
Congress, and it is fitting that we conclude it on an issue of
not only importance here in this country, but of global
significance, such as safe water for drinking and the problems
associated with sanitary conditions of contaminated water.
I wanted to put something in context, first of all, Ms.
Quintero, because you raised the issue of congressional action
to extend the deadline on the arsenic standard. I understand
Mr. Brown has made similar comments. You correctly identify a
problem at EPA, that EPA has missed most of its deadlines; is
that not correct?
Ms. Quintero. That is correct.
Mr. Tauzin. In fact, EPA was as much as a year late in
drafting its research plan; is that not right?
Ms. Quintero. That is correct.
Mr. Tauzin. And they were 6 months late on the schedule in
proposing the standard in the first place; is that not right?
Ms. Quintero. That is right.
Mr. Tauzin. Are you aware of when the comment period
finally closed on the rule?
Ms. Quintero. I believe it closed, I don't know the exact
date, but sometime in August.
Mr. Tauzin. No. September 20. Yes. That is our problem, and
in your statement you mention the irony of us having to extend
the deadline. The comment period just closed, September 20. Do
you know how many comments EPA received?
Ms. Quintero. Yes.
Mr. Tauzin. They received 883 comments. We are stuck with
the problem of the EPA having literally missed their deadlines
and finally get the comment period completed, we got 883
comments, and we may not have a choice but to extend the
deadline on completing this work, simply because EPA has
unfortunately put us in that position. That is where we are. I
just wanted you to know that.
Let me turn to the general questions that you posed for us.
In the context of world health and safety issues, we all know
that there are certain essentials in our lives, and water
clearly is one of them. The irony is that in America, when
people are polled as to what the essentials are in their lives,
they list things such as VCRs, mobile phones and computers, as
though those are essentials. I grew up in a rural part of
Louisiana where we understood water and air and things like
food, shelter were the critical essentials, but in a great
country with so many blessings like ours, we sometimes forget
how critical those essentials are, not only here in this
country, but where we take safe water literally for granted.
But in so many areas of the world, and I visited
Tegucigalpa back in the 1980's and learned tragically that the
life expectancy of life in Honduras and many other countries
that are neighbors of ours are 49 years of age, primarily
because of bad drinking water and unsanitary conditions, all of
the conditions that you have outlined for us in your film and
in your testimonies today.
I wonder if you would rank this for us. I know that
obviously global warming and clean air and preservation of
habitat and species, there are a lot of environmental concerns
that still plague us here in this country and around the world.
Where would you rank this issue that you have testified on
today? Any one of you want to put it--is it at the top? Is the
most serious thing affecting world health and safety and
populations and children, as you pointed out very adequately in
your testimony, is it the top one, Mr. Weiner?
Mr. Weiner. Let me respond very briefly by--I am not a
scientist, I am sort of a--I work for PBS. I am sort of your
ears and your eyes, and then we try to gather material and
present it in a nonefficacy way. We have a group of scientists
that advise us at Journey to Planet Earth, and I sent them an
e-mail and I said, I am going to be testifying, I am going to
talk on this issue. What do you think are the most important
issues of water? These are pretty high people. It includes
Jessica Tuckman Matthews over at the Carnegie Institute for
Peace; Morris Strong, who is the Assistant Secretary General at
the U.N. in terms of the Rio Conference, et cetera. And what
they asked me to express to the committee was an overwhelming
concern of national security. We do recognize disease is
terribly important; the economics of the situation is terribly
important, but perhaps to answer the question why should we
care, why should Americans care about this, on--.
Mr. Tauzin. Other than humanitarian concerns.
Mr. Weiner [continuing]. Is the issue of national security.
Mr. Tauzin. How do you tie that; how does that fit?
Mr. Weiner. Well, let me give you an example. The Middle
East is a tinderbox, and much of it is over water. There is an
aquifer that is shared inequitably.
Mr. Tauzin. I visited the River Jordan.
Mr. Weiner. Pretty tiny, isn't it?
Mr. Tauzin. Yes. I sat on top the Golan Heights and
realized how critical--it is just a little tiny river, and yet
how critical it is to people who are fighting over water there.
Mr. Weiner. More critical is the shared aquifer, which is
nonrenewable.
We are doing a show now in Mexico dealing with the problems
in Chiapas. Chiapas is an environmental story. It is
inequitable sharing of resources.
We are doing a story on the Nile River Valley, which is--.
Mr. Tauzin. What you are basically saying is that it has
national security implications because people will go to war,
they will die, they will fight over the access to water
supplies, to irrigate, drink, to live, to raise their families,
right?
Mr. Weiner. Right.
Mr. Tauzin. And the contamination, one country, one people
contaminating water supplies that are critical for other people
obviously will have some of the similar effects, right?
We are going to go from 5.7 billion people on this planet
to 9.4 billion by the year 2050. Your film depicts what happens
when populations expand dramatically without consideration for
water supplies, and drinking water supplies, and sanitation
disposal, and chemical treatment before it contaminates our
underground water supplies. We can expect a lot more of this, I
suppose, with a 9.4 billion population in just 50 years; is
that right? This gets worse, not better, unless we take it and
make it a huge national and international priority, right?
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones. Ranking, though, the catalog of the world's ills
and trying to find one is tough, but, I mean, certainly water
would permeate so many things, and as we were talking, I was
thinking--just jotting down some points here, and you think
about the things we talk about here today that are important,
you can see how water impacts on--my colleagues here at the
table mentioned a conflict in the macro sense. We have seen how
water, if it is handled well, can smooth over conflict at local
community levels. We have a project in the northwestern part of
Kenya, the Kerio Valley, where two ethnic groups are
constantly--nomadic ethnic groups are constantly fighting over
the scarce water resources.
But doing water well in a place like that really allows you
to smooth over conflict, so it has positive potential at the
grassroots level too.
Another thing that we talk a lot about today is the
democratization. You wonder how does water fit into that. But
we have seen that in our projects that it is not enough just to
build a water system or sanitation system. You need community
involvement to sustain it, and we can often pull on networks of
volunteers at a grassroots level. This is one step in the whole
democratization process, of getting people at the grassroots
level to take responsibility for their lives. That is probably
one of the most gratifying things we have seen in water
projects at the community level.
Mr. Tauzin. We are getting called on a vote. Is that a
warning for two votes? Let me recognize Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown. I thank the chairman.
Several of you mentioned the arsenic issue. I want to come
back to that. Mrs. Sampat, you mentioned arsenic in the Ganges.
Miss Quintero, you mentioned it in wells. Mr. Lockery, you
mentioned it also in your written testimony.
We know what we need to do in this country with arsenic. We
need to follow the recommendations of the EPA. We need to
follow the recommendations of the National Research Council,
which is an arm of the National Academy of Sciences and make
the standards perhaps as much as 1,000 percent, 10 times more
strict, more stringent.
I am a little troubled by the sort of let's--while not
letting EPA off the hook--let's beat up EPA. Just like in this
institution, this committee, we decided to beat up on the
Highway Safety, and give the government--the regulators on the
Firestone/Ford problem, when this same institution has done all
it can in weakening those agencies that protect the public--
weakening the EPA, cutting their funding, cutting a number of
OSHA inspectors, cutting here, cutting there, beating up on
these agencies; and then, when they do not protect the public,
we wonder why don't they protect the public.
Well, it is because in the case of arsenic, the pressure
from the mining industry on OMB, the pressure--in other cases
you can make a whole litany of that, and it is unfortunate that
we do not, when it comes time to protect the public, especially
in something that the public absolutely understands like
arsenic, that EPA, that Congress should not interfere.
Certainly EPA should have moved more quickly. EPA,
unfortunately, succumbed too much with OMB to pressures from
outside, mostly the mining industry. But EPA should have done
its job better. But that doesn't mean that Congress should say,
well, let's delay it even longer. Instead of January 1, this
year, let's get it in next year. We will have a new
administration, a new EPA administrator. And then it will get
delayed even further when every scientist knows that arsenic
levels are absolutely too high. So I think we know what to do
in this country.
My question is for the three of you that I mentioned--Mr.
Lockery, Ms. Quintero, Ms. Sampat--what do we do in the places
you mentioned about arsenic? What do we do? What do they do?
Briefly, each of the three of you, if you would.
Ms. Quintero. I will gladly begin.
First of all, you are absolutely right. Why let EPA off the
hook? And our whole idea here is we have to set an example. I
mean, beginning with the U.S., if we can't get things done
here, we are not going to be able to set a proper example on
how things ought to be done there.
We know what needs to be done. Having Congress say the word
on extending this deadline goes far beyond what is necessary to
give EPA time to respond to its comments and time to actually
promulgate the rule. While they may not meet the January 1
deadline and it may be tight, that is what the law says and we
should respect it as it is, rather than weakening our position
in front of the world forum.
As for Bangladesh, it is really the only country where I
have spoken to people there. They need assistance in tapping
new sources, tapping new wells, putting to use the monitoring
systems that are available at low cost and the new and other
treatment systems that are available to prevent this type of
contamination. But the main thing is tapping new wells. And
while that is not a perfect solution, it is a solution and one
that, due to their economic state, has been difficult. But I
believe that, as far as Bangladesh goes, that is one of the
many things that can be done to assist them.
Mr. Tauzin. Let me ask you, please, to expedite your
answers. I will try to get Mr. Gillmor's questions in before we
have to leave, too, so if you can expedite, please.
Mr. Lockery. On Bangladesh, the problem is there are
something like a million tube wells in Bangladesh; and so,
first of all, defining what the extent of the problem is is
very difficult. Just imagine carrying out tests on a million
tube wells.
The first problem is you have to agree on the test you will
carry out. What test procedure are you going to use?
Then when you have defined the problem, what solutions can
you use? What are the appropriate solutions? You could tap
deeper aquifers. But where are the resources going to come from
for doing that?
So now it is a case of finding what are appropriate
technology solutions. What can you use at village level? What
is affordable? What solutions are available and how well do
they work?
Then, finally, when you have figured out what the problem
is, what the appropriate technology is, we then have got to
make people aware, got to give them access to the new
technology; and we are talking about 100 million people.
And, finally, it is not as though the problem is located in
one particular area of the country. It is spread across the
whole country in pockets. One well can be fine, and you go a
hundred meters down the road and another well may be
contaminated. So I think it is a problem of huge proportions.
So I think the Bangladeshis in many ways have made good efforts
to deal with the problem but don't underestimate the problem.
Mr. Tauzin. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Gillmor for a round of questions.
Mr. Gillmor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to make a comment on the comments by Mr. Brown
blaming Congress for problems with arsenic. The truth of the
matter is the Clinton-Gore administration proposed to delete
targeted funding for arsenic research, and actually Congress
has provided millions more for this research than the EPA
requested. It was $4.8 million more in fiscal year 1997,
$500,000 more in fiscal year 1998 and $1.6 million more in
fiscal year 1991.
But I want to ask a question to Mr. Lockery and Mr. Jones
because we legislate here, or at least we try to. Are there
specific legislative measures that you would recommend to help
in the cause? Are there legal or statutory impediments to
delivering the service that do not make sense or make the job
more difficult?
Mr. Tauzin. I am going to announce for the record we will
come back following the vote so we will have time to examine
more issues.
Mr. Brown. If the gentleman would yield, Ms. Sampat did not
have a chance to answer.
Mr. Tauzin. We will come back to her when we have a chance.
Mr. Gillmor has the floor.
Mr. Gillmor. I think you heard my question. If there is
something we can do or some impediments which that you have to
deal with of a legal nature.
Mr. Lockery. As far as I am concerned, sir, I don't think I
am competent to answer that question.
Mr. Jones. Also, we are not seeking a legislative remedy. I
think something that is helpful, that Congress is aware of the
movements toward the industry of policing itself and things
such as the Sphere Standards, which are a body of commitments
that the non-governmental organizations, the relief and
development community have come together to assure that they
deliver a quality product. I think that is a step in the right
direction, and it is not something we are seeking legislative
remedy for but just something that you should be aware of, that
there are standards and it is important to conform to
standards.
Mr. Gillmor. Thank you.
Mr. Tauzin. Thank you, Mr. Gillmor.
While my friend is still here, before we break, the
chairman wants to take the privilege to comment that we have
not beat up NHTSA for failure to do a job that it was funded to
do. NHTSA, with a five cent phone call, could have returned a
phone call to State Farm Insurance in July 1998 and learned
that it had a recall problem. They just filed that information
away in a wastebasket instead. For five cents, that is all it
had to do.
NHTSA saved a lots of lives. I have congratulated and
commended them. They are one of my favorite agencies. But when
they fail to protect Americans on the highway I will jump on
them. Absolutely.
I don't appreciate people trying to blame their problems on
Ronald Reagan or anybody else--or Herbert Hoover, for that
matter. Five cents was all it took to make a phone call to
State Farm, and they would have known they had a recall
problem. I don't beat up on EPA unless they deserve it. In this
case, they deserved it. They missed their deadlines. They had
money appropriated to meet their deadlines. Now we are stuck
with a comment period that just ended on September 20.
But I will let my friend respond, if he would like to.
Then the committee stands in recess for about 15 minutes, I
think.
[Brief recess.]
Chairman Bliley. The committee will come to order.
Will the gentleman in the rear close the door, please?
Thank you.
I believe you have a follow-up question to Ms. Sampat.
Mr. Brown. Actually, she did not get an opportunity to
answer the question that Mr. Lockery and Ms. Quintero answered
on what to do with the Ganges in terms of arsenic. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Sampat. As I pointed out earlier, there are about a
million wells that are affected with arsenic levels between 5
and 100 times the WHO guideline, and there are a number of
international agencies in place. Basically, the situation right
now is something of a triage, really, trying to make sure that
the population is not exposed to increased levels of arsenic.
But I think the two lessons that come out of this, you
know, the first one is the precautionary principal. What
happened was in the 1970's these wells were dug because surface
water was really polluted. However, there was no testing done
to see if there were naturally occurring levels of arsenic in
the sediment. So I think sort of applying the precautionary
principal to the way we look at water and protection of water
sources and prevention of chemical pollution of water is
important not just for naturally occurring substances but as
far as agricultural run-off and industrial effluent and so on
are concerned.
Then, specifically with the Bangladesh situation, I think
U.S. Assistance of the current health care and water protection
efforts that are going on in Bangladesh are going to be key.
Finally, I support Mrs. Quintero's comments on the arsenic
guideline in this country, although it is slightly unrelated,
given the natural occurrence in Bangladesh.
Chairman Bliley. The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr.
Barrett.
Mr. Barrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am honored to be at
what I think might be your last hearing.
Mr. Lockery, we have heard today that there is over a
billion people in the world, in the developed world, that do
not have access to safe drinking water. Obviously, this is a
grave situation and one where the United States can and should
play a leadership role.
I am curious as to how this demand in clean water affects
the supply, and I asked that question to someone who represents
a community that borders the Great Lakes. As you may or may not
know, in 1998 a Canadian company was about to sell 150 million
gallons of water from the Great Lakes to Asia before widespread
concern forced the plan to be dropped. So as the need for clean
drinking water to Asia and other countries around the world
grows, what do you see the likelihood that calls to divert from
places like the Great Lakes or other freshwater sources in the
U.S. Will grow?
Mr. Lockery. First of all, I think there are two problems
here. One is around water quality, and the other is around the
quantity of water. The billion people--it is more than a
billion people, of course, that do not have safe water. In a
number of cases, they have water supply. Everybody has a water
supply. So it is quality issue. They do not have access to safe
water. They have access to some water.
With regard to the quantity, if you look at the sort of
water resource figures for the world, my sense is that in many
places there are existing resources that can be used for
drinking. In other words, the water is there. But it may be not
possible for people to use it. It is just too far away from
them.
I don't see the large shipments of water from the Great
Lakes to Asia or to Africa. I think the water resources are
there. It is a question of bringing them closer to people. It
is a question of managing the water resources better so that
you cut down pollution, you cut down agricultural run-off, soil
erosion, et cetera. You make a better use of the existing
resources.
Mr. Barrett. Thank you.
Dr. Huq--is that how you pronounce it?
Mr. Huq. Huq.
Mr. Barrett. Huq. I understand from your testimony that
sources of water contamination in the industrialized world may
differ from problems in the developing countries; and I also
understand that simple interventions, like filtering water
through a sari cloth in Bangladesh, can reduce the spread of
waterborne disease.
The community that I represent, Milwaukee, was the
community that was hit hard in 1993 by cryptosporidium; and
obviously many of us who work in Washington have read about the
physteria which has plagued the Eastern Shore in recent years.
Are there public health lessons learned or technologies
implemented in the U.S. In response to these that you see as
important or are we going to see more of these types of
outbreaks? What is your feel there?
Mr. Huq. Well, as I think Ms. Sampat mentioned, that nine
out of ten water filtration systems in this country exist which
is using the system which is 50, 100 years old. So you have to
improve and introduce newer technology. That is one important
thing.
Chlorination has been widely used, but there are some
findings--like we published a paper that underchlorination
sometimes introduce some of the organisms in a non-culturable
state. It means the organisms are still alive, viable, they
maintain their virulence, but they do not appear on the
conventional culture method by which usually people determine
whether the organisms are there or not.
So that is something we have to do in this country to
improve the system of purification and also the age old
pipeline where this taking place. Those kinds of research I
think is very important in this country.
Mr. Barrett. Is it easy to get those developing countries
to do that type of research?
Mr. Huq. It is easy?
Mr. Barrett. Is it something that is being done? Are we
imparting some of the knowledge that we have learned from some
of these outbreaks to the developing countries at a fast enough
speed, do you think?
Mr. Huq. It is easy to some extent when we really know how
much it is--how much the bigger problem is. Then probably we
need to know a little more before we can really implement it.
Mr. Barrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Tauzin. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Bryant.
Mr. Bryant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this--
apparently your last hearing, and it is certainly a very
appropriate one.
I thank the panel for being here. As you can see from the
members and our moving in and out, there are many other things
going on on the Hill today; and I will be leaving very shortly
to go to the floor to speak on the subject of bankruptcy
reform, which is one of the issues that will be before this
Congress before we adjourn. But, again, thank you for being
here with us.
I have just some general questions. Perhaps if one or two
of you could volunteer answers, I don't think I have enough
time for each of you to respond.
But I am wondering if one of you or two of you could
respond quickly on how investments in the international
assistance should be prioritized and what are the most
important areas, who should receive first funding and how can
initial investments in safe drinking water and waste water
facilities be sustained over time.
Anyone want to jump into that one? Miss Quintero.
Ms. Quintero. Yes. Well, very briefly.
What we need to do is, first of all, make it, as I have
stated several times, a priority. If the funding is more
targeted and if we are able to share our knowledge--for
example, the American Waterworks Association has a non-profit
branch that works internationally called Water for People.
Their expertise, as we know from their work here nationally, is
probably the best that you can find internationally short of
some of the knowledge that we have coming from France. But they
have not had the same backing and the same funding to be able
to actually get into these countries and truly to do the work
that we are doing here there.
There are many smaller non-governmental organizations that
do that same type of work. And the importance is to recognize
that it is two-fold. We need smaller groups that can go into
the small rural villages and people with more urban expertise
to go into these urban perimeter areas which are more and more
becoming the subject of controversy today because--by virtue of
the fact that access to water in rural communities is so
limited that people--and access to all conveniences is so
limited that people are moving to the cities, and these cities
do not have infrastructures to provide water to all the people
who are living around their areas.
So by providing more funding and support to our own NGO's
and to our own experts, either through tax credits or I don't
exactly know how, but I think we can do more and export our
knowledge, because we still are respected as knowledgeable and
capable of embarking on these projects. So I would suggest that
is one good way to start at the beginning.
Mr. Jones. I would like to say that I think we have to be
careful that, while in this day and age I would never want to
downplay the importance of technology, but I think the
distinction that was just made between the urban systems and
the rural systems is a very important one to keep in mind. I
think we have to ask why in the past have rural systems so
often failed when you go back after 3 years, 5 years, 6 years
and find that systems have broken down. And I think we have to
emphasize the importance of sustainability, which gets you into
the importance of grassroots networks that are able to mobilize
populations to take ownership of these projects. You need
communities that will produce volunteers and networks of people
who have an ownership in these things.
So that is not to downgrade the importance of technology,
certainly in the big urban situations, but in these rural
situations technology might not be the silver bullet. But what
you need is that very hard community-building process of
drawing on human resources and community networks that allow
you to sustain a system.
Mr. Bryant. I thank you for your answers. Certainly that
specifically deals with the issue of sustainability that I
asked.
Again, to the entire panel, sort of shifting gears a little
bit. There is apparently some dispute, at least in the academic
communities, over the potential for future conflict worldwide
with respect to water resources. Does anyone have an opinion on
that they would like to share with this committee?
Mr. Weiner. Well, I did share it a little bit earlier. A
good deal of our work in upcoming episodes in Journey to Planet
Earth, a PBS series, is going to deal specifically with
environmental security. We showed some examples of the problems
in the Middle East which are quite obvious, shared aquifers and
shared water resources which is exploding right now in the
Middle East. I just think that, unless we recognize the issues
of environmental security, things could conceivably get out of
hand.
I suppose one way to bring it home to the American public
is that--we are investigating the story right now that started
in the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh. A freighter took on bilge
water, contaminated water and released it off the coast of
Peru, and I believe, and the panel probably knows it better
than I do, and started the biggest cholera epidemic in South
American history. Can you imagine that if that was released in
the Gulf of Mexico or the port of New Orleans? All of a sudden
there would be a wake-up call in terms of why we have care
about what is happening in the rest of the world.
We are also doing a story about Haiti and the collapse of
Haiti. The political collapse of Haiti is directly associated
with the environmental collapse of that island and hence
refugees coming into the United States and the problems
associated with that.
So I can cite many, many examples of things that we are
exploring right now.
Mr. Bryant. Thank you. I thank the Chair.
Chairman Bliley. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The Chair recognizes himself for a round.
Mr. Weiner, do you have a sense or any knowledge of how the
governments of Mexico or Turkey are responding to the problems
presented in your films?
Mr. Weiner. No. All I can tell you is what I have seen. And
I have seen in Mexico major demonstrations that have not
enlisted from the government proper response. In that opening
sequence in Mexico City, you saw a demonstration. That
demonstration was the Sandinistas coming into Mexico City. Our
cameras happened to be there. It was the first time they
entered Mexico City and demonstrated for their cause. The
equitable cause in Chiapas and the response from the Mexican
government I think has been less than positive.
In Istanbul, when we were there a couple of years ago, the
local authorities refused to accept the fact that they had a
problem. We wanted to do a story about the Kurds coming into
Istanbul, and we suggested we go to the bus station where they
are all coming in. And they said, why do you want to do that?
Why don't you go to the airport? And we said, I don't think
refugees come into the airport.
These issues are very hard for governments to recognize.
Also, Zimbabwe is another example of the government
refusing to accept an environmental problem; and they turned it
into a political problem to maintain their power, basically.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you.
Mr. Lockery, what is CARE's strategy for increasing
carriage in rural and urban areas?
Mr. Lockery. I think it is one of empowerment, Mr.
Chairman. I mentioned in my testimony the need to put people at
the center, and I think what we have learned through both our
rural and urban programming is the need to empower communities,
to build their capacity both at the individual level and the
community level so they are able to make decisions for
themselves on the type of service they want, the level of
service; and, of course, the better the service the higher the
contribution that is required. But the kernel of the strategy
is this issue of empowering communities.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you.
Mr. Jones, if Congress were to appropriate more funds in
support of this issue, how would you use the funds?
Mr. Jones. Our emphasis has traditionally been on rural
projects, and there would be an expansion of existing
programming which I think is good programming as it exists now.
It also emphasizes, as I think as my colleague from CARE
just said, the importance of empowering communities. More
resources would allow us to meet more communities. We are
fortunate in that we have a preexisting partner on the ground
in all of the countries we work. Every country has a Red Cross
or a Red Crescent Society. That Red Cross or Red Crescent has a
community network. We have got to strengthen that network.
As I said earlier, it is not just the technology of digging
a well, which is pretty straightforward. The challenge is
sustaining that well, mobilizing the community to take
ownership of it. More resources would allow an expansion of
existing projects and would take a lot of pressures off
movement into urban areas and movements of things like this.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you.
Dr. Huq, you describe a simple filtration method involving
saris, the local cloth of India and Bangladesh, as a way of
decontaminating water from the threat of cholera. Your study
finds this method has a very useful impact. How much of our
arsenal must be education of developing populations about these
simple techniques and about hygiene?
Mr. Huq. This is a very important issue, education,
motivation and massive public awareness. Like there is a
finding, we know just hand washing reduces shigellosis
tremendously. In our study at the present time, one to one
villagers are now being educated how to use this filter when
there is no cost involved. All they need to know is how to use
the filter and filter their water when they bring it in their
home. That has reduced threefold cholera cases--I mean,
threefold reduction in cholera cases in our first 3 months of
study. So this is important, how to educate these people, and
it takes time. All these illiterate people, they really don't
understand when it is told the first time, maybe repeatedly
when they are told. Once it goes in their mind and they
understand, then they use it. So for education, massive amount
of effort is needed.
Chairman Bliley. Thank you.
Are there additional questions from the members?
If not, the Chair certainly wants to thank the witnesses
for your testimony.
The Chair notes that some members are detained in other
meetings and may have additional questions or written materials
for you which they may wish to submit for the record. So,
without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30
days for the members to submit such materials or submit written
questions to the witnesses and to place their responses in the
recorded. It is so ordered.
Mr. Barrett. Mr. Chairman, since this is your last hearing,
if I am not mistaken, you began your career as a Democrat and
as you are ending here in the committee, just remember it was
the Democrats who were with you here until the very end.
Chairman Bliley. The Chair duly notes that. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]