Resources for Safe Drinking Water Large Concern Globally

by Maggie Paquet

Water. It’s a simple molecule, but an extremely complex subject. It is the source of life and can be a reservoir of disease. Civilisations are built on it and whole cultures have died out from lack of it. With more than six billion people now living on our planet (1.1 billion without safe drinking water and 2.4 billion without access to adequate sanitation), water is a major concern world-wide. So much so that over 24,000 participants from 182 countries went to Japan in March to attend the eight-day 3rd World Water Forum (www.world.water-forum3.com).

The Forum held 351 sessions, many focusing on how to bring safe water and sanitation to the entire world. Emphasis was placed on the responsibility of regulators and decision-makers to get rid of their preconceived ideas and start thinking about sanitation in a more integrated way, to view wastes as a resource, and stop allowing our land and water to be contaminated by sewage. One recommendation stressed the need to develop national, district, and local policies that looked at sanitation from the household perspective. A closing statement of the Forum highlighted the need for “… effective governance…adequate financing, and inclusive, community-level public participation…” (emphasis added).

Concern for water resources is also very much a concern for food production. Lester R. Brown, of the Worldwatch Institute, says:

World water demand…has exceeded the sustainable yield of aquifers in scores of countries [including China, India, and the United States, which collectively account for half of the world grain harvest]… Water scarcity, once a local issue, is now crossing international boundaries via the international grain trade. Because it takes a thousand tons of water to produce a ton of grain, importing grain is the most efficient way to import water…As water shortages intensify, so too will the competition for grain in world markets. [Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble; additional data and information sources at www.earth-policy.org]

And let’s not forget the huge wild card in water issues–global climate change–which is turning “normal” precipitation patterns into a dream of days past. (See www.wateryear2003.org — the official website for UNESCO’s International Year of Freshwater for more discussion on water resources and climate change.)

In the face of all the challenges, how do we make sure there’s enough clean water for drinking, growing food, and all the other life-sustaining reasons we need it? Globally, demand for water has tripled over the last half-century. It is not a thing we can afford to waste.

Yet waste it we certainly do. One of the main ways we waste it is by using it as a place to dump sewage–mostly human wastes. Whether we live in a city or the country, most of us just pull the plug or flush the toilet without giving a second thought to what happens to the stuff after it goes down the drain.

Treating effluents and then pumping them into a river, lake, or the ocean, costs us big–environmentally and financially. Yet can we even calculate the costs of disease and lost productivity caused by inadequate water quality and quantity? The importance of ensuring that effluents don’t contaminate our drinking water has been brought home to all of us only too painfully since the Walkerton tragedy.

So what can we do? We can unhook ourselves from our addiction to flushing and forgetting. We can learn how to deal with our wastes much as a bear recycles its own metabolic wastes created during hibernation. We can educate ourselves and our governments about better ways to deal with the waste products of our society.

How do we do this? A first–and vital–step is to deal with our practice of wasting water by letting it run down the drain or by flushing it down the toilet. The second step is to achieve greater understanding and acceptance by society of the technology that will allow us to do that.

Surprisingly, the chief emerging technology is low-tech, or old technology: waterless composting toilets and constructed wetlands, or other greywater recycling systems. In many cases these low-tech solutions have been improved upon by employing high-tech materials and engineering designs. They conserve water and, when married with new solar or wind technology, also conserve energy.

Governments: Helpers? Or Hindrances?

Most likely, the answer to this depends on where you live. It shouldn’t. At local and regional levels, it seems there’s a game played by building and public health inspectors with rural residents and communities stuck as monkeys-in-the-middle. While some allow composting toilets for in-house use only (no outside drain), if city sewage is available, you still have to hook into it; if you live in a rural area, you still have to install a septic system.

Joan van der Goes, of Cedar on Vancouver Island, installed a Clivus Multrum toilet and a Clivus greywater system in her new home. The greywater is filtered, then pumped to a large planter and distributed. Lab tests show no fecal coliforms and fewer than 16 total coliforms/ml in the planter’s runoff. By comparison, conventional septic tanks inject 200,000 fecal coliforms/ml into the ground. Her composting toilet saves 40 percent of her water and produces one bucket of fine compost/person/year. It is dehydrated by about 90 percent. Her whole system cost about 80 percent of a septic tank system.

Joan’s in a catch-22 situation. Local building inspectors won’t give her an occupancy permit because, they say, her system has not been approved by public health authorities. They’ve threatened to bulldoze her house. Provincial health inspectors say she doesn’t have a permit under the Sewage Disposal Regulation because she doesn’t have a septic tank. Cliff Turner, a professional Environmental Health Officer living nearby, says, “In over 30 years, I’ve never seen a more sustainable or safer way to deal with household sanitation–it’s the best system I’ve seen.” For her part, Joan–in her 80s–has given over 500 tours but still can’t live in her house.

On the other hand, the Capital Regional District prepared a report, Recycling Water in the 21st Century, for their Water Advisory Committee. Faced with increasing drought episodes in the past decade, the Capital Regional District is keen to find a long term strategy to conserve water while protecting public health, the environment, and economic development. Among the report’s recommendations are: expanding public education to include greywater recycling, developing a Best Management Practices Manual to assist municipal policy on greywater re-use and on composting toilets, consulting with the Vancouver Island Health Authority to develop standards for this technology, promoting water recycling in new subdivisions and rural communities, and getting a non-government organization to develop a composting toilet and greywater recycling demonstration site to enhance public education.

Government has a responsibility to show leadership in health, sanitation, and water protection issues, and set quality standards to ensure that the technology people buy and install actually works. Agencies should be working with people and communities to better inform the public, instead of stonewalling or threatening people who want to move ahead in developing sustainable lifestyles.

A BC government report, Environmental Trends in British Columbia 2002, discusses water quality and quantity in vague terms: “government is working to develop…groundwater legislation…” and “government plans to improve drinking water source protection…” Meanwhile, the ministry’s website reports that “… industry (manufacturing, mining and aquaculture) is BC’s largest user of groundwater (55%), followed by agriculture (20%) and municipalities (20%).” It’s not likely this government will put many restrictions on these industrial sectors.

Why are our government agencies so resistant to this technology?

While they say their main concern is for public health, there is a baffling inconsistency in response from public health authorities. Cliff Turner believes the legal framework needs fixing. If a septic tank malfunctions and seeps to the surface, Public Health can order it to be repaired. But if it seeps into groundwater or a drinking water well, they do nothing, saying it’s too difficult to prove where the problem is coming from. Turner believes the discrepancy in applying the regulations is due to a lack of expertise. Subdivisions get final approval by the Highways department, not by authorities who necessarily have expertise in water quality. So when contamination occurs underground, the inspectors go after individuals. Apparently road access is more important than protecting drinking water.

Authorities also say they don’t permit these systems because of the public’s lack of knowledge and low standard of maintenance. But rather than deem them illegal, they should be working with the public to increase the level of competency and commitment. After all, septic systems also need to be maintained, so why the discrepancy?

Why can BC Parks, the provincial Highways ministry, and Parks Canada use these systems in parks and highway rest stops, but residents and communities can not?

Some agencies are beginning to work with the public, especially where there are extensive shellfish aquaculture operations nearby (Is it public health or commercial enterprise they’re trying to protect?), such as along parts of the east coast of Vancouver Island. For example, GHOSTS (Green House Organic Sewage Treatment Society) on Hornby Island is testing several alternative systems under the BC Ministry of Health’s Innovative Technology Program.

Some jurisdictions require low-flow toilets in their building permits. Public education on maintaining septic systems is on the increase. But these are only baby steps on the way to long-term sustainability. A key element lies in getting government agencies to work with people in both rural and urban areas to test and implement safe, effective methods for protecting water and dealing with our wastes.

The UN’s goal to bring water and sanitation to over a billion people is probably impossible using current systems. Michael Rouse, head of the World Water Association (representing water regulators and engineers across the world), says the economic and environmental costs of sewer pipes (and the fact that they most often drain into and pollute water bodies) are too high and that, “the world should revert to using human solid waste as compost and fertilizer and allow liquids to drain into the ground.” He also agrees with World Water Forum recommendations that “there should be a concentration on community-led programs…” (“World sewage plans should be abandoned,” The Guardian, March 10, 2002).

So what is the bottom line? We need to get over the bad habit of flushing and forgetting and become more aware of sewage and greywater as recyclable resources–and learn how to manage them properly. We need to educate ourselves about safe and efficient ways people and communities can adopt to protect our fresh water resources and become more sustainable. Most of all, we need to encourage government agencies to stop fighting agency “turf wars” and work with us to help ensure clean, adequate water supplies now and for future generations.

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