Poisonous water

At least one million people in Lahore are using unsafe drinking water contaminated with different pollutants including arsenic if we take into account the findings of the 2014 annual report on drinking water by the city’s Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa).
Lahore city is considered to be a special focus of development with tens of billions being spent on signal-free, wider roads. The provision of safe drinking water to its inhabitants, however, does not figure on the development agenda.
In 2014, Wasa collected 4,182 water samples from different localities under its jurisdiction and analysed it for different parameters. Wasa’s testing showed that 89 percent of the samples were safe while 11 percent were unsafe.
As these samples were collected from all the localities of the city, the contamination of 11 percent of the total samples can be projected on the same percentage of the city’s population exceeding 10 million. However, the number of the affected population with polluted drinking water could be much higher as the Wasa report shows water being supplied to congested parts of the city is the most contaminated.
The report of Wasa’s water testing reveals that the highest contamination of drinking water exists in low-income, crowded neighbourhoods such as Data Ganj Baksh Town and northern parts of the city.
For instance, in the industrial area of Nishtar Town (Township etc), 44 percent of the samples were found to be contaminated with poisonous substances. More than 30 percent of the samples from the old city and Farkhabad areas of Ravi Town, Ichra locality of Allama Iqbal Town, Shimla Hill of Data Ganj Bakhsh Town and the Mughalpura area of Aziz Bhatti Town were polluted beyond permissible limits.
Wasa’s annual report strengthens fears that Lahore’s underground water is no more fit for drinking purposes. Around 50 percent of the 73 samples collected from non-Wasa water sources were found to be unsafe due to high contamination. This water is pumped out from 200-300 feet deep boring compared to 800-900 feet drilling done by the official water authority.
One major reason for this contamination is the fast sinking water table in the city owing to excessive pumping out of water. As a result, the underground water from the south, which is polluted with harmful metals and other toxic chemicals from industrial units, is rushing towards the city’s water table.
In the past, different localities used to have different quality of underground water based on elevation, with high-elevated areas such as the walled city and The Mall having higher quality of potable water. As the underground water crept up from the south, this distinction disappeared.
Hundreds of factories in the city are pumping effluent in the ground through wells with the help of machines. Injection of waste water causes changes in the geo-chemistry of the aquifer, hiking its PH level and triggering the release of arsenic and fluoride contents from sub-soil rocks.
This is contaminating the city’s underground water reserve with harmful metals, toxins and bacteria thus making it unfit to drink. The Punjab Environment Protection Department, riddled with corruption and lack of capacity, has been unable to stop this criminal activity.
At present, more than 400 Wasa tube-wells and hundreds of private tube-wells (no official audit of which was ever conducted) are pumping out nearly 3000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) of underground water in the city. The city turns this huge quantity of water into sewage and drains it without treatment into River Ravi.
The outcome of this unchecked water-polluting activity is before us. The findings of 2014 annual report of Wasa on the drinking water of Lahore are alarming. The authority has been analysing drinking water in the city since 2008 and recommending measures to fix this issue but the Punjab government has not taken any corrective measures.
It is considered to be a serious crime to harm a person’s life. The supply of unsafe water to more than one million people every day is a crime of huge proportions.
Email: adnanadilzaidi@gmail.com