Tanzania’s Coastal Communities Forced to Drink Seawater

By an IPS Correspondent Reprint | | Print |

PANGANI, Tanzania, Oct 22 2013 (IPS) - The freshwater drinking supply of the coastal town of Pangani in northeast Tanzania is becoming increasingly contaminated as salt water steadily seeps in from the Indian Ocean.

Pangani Basin Water Board officials Arafa Maggidi (green shirt) and Lillian Mkongo (seated) collected water samples to measure salinity at one of the tributaries of Pangani River in September 2013. Credit: Kizito Makoye/IPS

The 500 km Pangani River and underground aquifers are the main sources of drinking water for thousands of residents in Pangani town, located about 400km north of the capital, Dar es Salaam. Over the last few decades, the rising ocean has been siphoning away freshwater and leaking salt water into aquifers and wells.

Dwindling rainfall has also made it difficult to replenish freshwater supplies. But Pangani town residents tell IPS that some underground wells that were previously resilient to the seeping salt water have now been contaminated.

“The rate at which dissolved salt is leaking into freshwater sources is quite alarming, we have to be extra-vigilant to monitor this situation,” Hamza Sadiki, a researcher with Pangani Basin Water Board tells IPS. He says most water sources have been contaminated, leaving people with no other option but to drink salty water.

Scientists have linked the growing problem partially to climate change. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, as sea levels rise, water from the ocean will inundate wetlands and other low-lying lands, intensify flooding and increasing the salinity of rivers and groundwater tables.

According to a 2011 study titled “Economics of climate change in Tanzania”, published by the Tanzania government in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, changing weather patterns in this East African nation will make its coastal communities more vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Already, many along the coast have been forced to drink water with high levels of soluble salt and many are bracing for a bleak future as they desperately wait for the government to improve the quality of their water.

“Salt water is a huge problem here, but we drink it anyway since fresh water has become scarce. All the wells are supplying salt water – we need help,” Amran Shamte, a 65-year-old local resident tells IPS. He recalls his school days in the 1960s when crocodiles were commonly seen close to the river mouth. He says that today they have moved further upstream as they cannot withstand the salt water seeping into their freshwater supply.

According to the World Health Organisation, the acceptable level of dissolved salts in freshwater from lakes, rivers and ground water is from 20 to 800 milligrams per litre (mg/L).

But water samples taken by researchers from the Pangani Basin Water Board show that the total soluble salt levels downstream of the Pangani River are far beyond acceptable standards at 2,000 mg/L. “It is for this reason that the government decided to set its own standards of salt water to enable people in coastal communities to drink this water,” Arafa Maggid, an engineer from Pangani Basin Water Board tells IPS.

Sabas Kimboka, a nutritionist from the Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre, tells IPS that drinking salt water over a long period of time could potentially be hazardous to human health since salt dehydrates the body. “There is no safe amount of seawater to drink, the salt makes you more dehydrated and requires you to drink more fresh water [that] you probably don’t have,” he explains.