FORUM A water pollution crisis in the Americas By Luís Eduardo Galvão Cities in the world, especially ones located in less developed regions, such as Latin America and the Caribbean, face serious challenges in the management of water resources. Given the crucial need to supply water to the population, treatment of sewage is unavoidable. Proper piped water systems would put an end to puddles of contaminated water like this one in a slum in Rio de Janeiro. Photo © UN-HABITAT The issue becomes critical when fresh water is threatened by the very water source supplying the cities. If there is a high degree of pollution, then the costs of treatment rise to stratospheric levels. The same situation occurs with the removal and treatment of sewage. In São Paulo, 1.5 million people live near the Bilings and Guarapiranga reservoirs that account for the supply of 21 per cent of water to the metropolitan region of Brazil's biggest city. These important reservoirs are becoming more and more polluted. The cost of water treatment chemicals rocketed from from R$ 34.2 millions (US$ 11.7 million) in 1998 to R$ 60 million in 2002. While water production increased 8 per cent in four years, the volume of chemicals used in the water treatment process increased 40 per cent hitting 170,000 tons per year - the equivalent to 17,000 truckloads - just to make it safe to drink. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the degree of difficulty of access to drinking water is mainly due to the pollution of the water by domestic sewage. The region is considered rich in water, with 30 per cent of the planet's reserves, but even so it manages to leave over 117 million of its inhabitants in urban and rural areas without access to adequate services for a safe water supply and sewage treatment. Tierramerica magazine recently warned of the problems of water resources management: the pollution of the rivers and seas of Latin America and the Caribbean caused by the uncontrolled discharge of untreated domestic sewage for decades is at the top of the list of the environmental problems affecting coastal cities, famous seaside resorts and river communities of the region. The problem has become critical because more than 60 per cent of the region's population live in coastal zones, and 60 of the 77 largest cities are located near rivers and coastlines. The Peruvian city of Lima, for example, discharges 18,000 liters per second of water waste into the Pacific Ocean. The results are beaches unsuitable for bathing and the spread of diseases such as hepatitis, diarrhea and cholera that struck Perú in 1991, killing thousands of people, and generating expenses of millions of dollars in health and adversely affecting exports and tourism in the country. "Countries in the Americas recognise the grave situation, as noted in the recommendations of recent specialized meetings on the subject. They are making strong efforts to implement new laws, and enforce existing legislation on the discharge of municipal waste water." - Bernhard Griesinger Organization of American States The Gulf of California has 160,000 units of fecal matter per 100 milliliters of water. The permissible limit established by the Mexican health authorities is 500 units. The gulf is on the north of the country, between the states of Baja California and Sonora, where Guaymas, one of the main port cities is located, and where the Colorado, Sonora, Yaqui and Fuerte rivers flow into the ocean. Specialists noted the largest volume of pollutants comes from municipal drainage, mainly fecal waste. Even the most famous seaside resorts of Latin America and the Caribbean are affected. A lack of sewage treatment is contaminating the area around Cancun and although local authorities show the success of their decontamination plans, research centers and ecologists of the region say that such famous beaches as Viña del Mar, in Chile, Cartagena de Indias, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, Acapulco on the Mexican Pacific coast and many others no longer offer safe beaches for bathing. The great tourist beaches of Rio de Janeiro - Copacabana, Ipanema and Barra da Tijuca - are unsuitable in many parts at certain times. These beaches are saved from having much more serious pollution problems only because they are located on the open sea, the opposite situation of Guanabara bay, that receives, directly or indirectly, waste materials from 15 municipalities. Even the heavenly beaches of the Caribbean, annually visited by 100 million tourists, that contribute 43 per cent of the GDP of an area without resources to invest in sanitation, receive between 80 to 90 per cent of waste water without previous treatment. In Haiti, Barbados and Jamaica beaches are being degraded by the presence of fecal matter. Luís Eduardo Galvão, lectures on the environment and international relations at Bennet University in Rio de Janeiro.