ENVIRONMENT-LATAM: Waste and Pollution Aggravate Water Shortages

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sep 7 2001 (IPS) - The pressing problems of waste and contamination of water in Latin America, where many cities already suffer shortages and inadequate coverage, drew together concerned authorities, experts and environmentalists this week in the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguazu.

One clear example of the waste seen in the region is provided by the northwestern Argentine province of Mendoza, where daily consumption stands at 500 litres per head – three times the level of Norway, a country with abundant water resources – despite the fact that rainfall is scarce and water supplies depend on thaws in the Andes mountains.

That comparison was cited by Eduardo Mestre, the head of the International Network of Basin Organisations, to highlight the risks facing Latin America, a region with a high level of water consumption.

The International Network of Basin Organisations is made up of 134 committees of representatives of governments, large water- consuming companies, and civil society that administer river basins in 77 countries.

Issues affecting water supplies in this region were discussed Sunday through Thursday by the 1,070 people attending the Sixth Inter-American Dialogue on Water Management in the Brazilian city of Foz de Iguazu, located near the falls of Iguazu on the border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

The Dialogue was organised by the Organisation of American States and the Inter-American Water Resources Network, which hold such conferences every two years.

The amount of water used to flush toilets in Latin America is six times the six-litre average used in Sweden, Mestre also pointed out.

However, household activity is not as big a culprit as agriculture when it comes to squandering water, the experts stressed.

Farming accounts for a full 70 percent of water consumption in the world. In Brazil, Latin America’s giant, that proportion stands as high as 75 or even 80 percent, Raymundo Garrido, Brazil’s National Secretary of Water Resources, told IPS.

The official noted that flood irrigation was still used in Brazil, by rice-growers in the south, for example.

Garrido also said charging for water consumed is an instrument that helps educate the public on the value of water and the need to reduce waste and to use water in a rational manner.

In Brazil, consumption-based charges were first adopted in 1998 in the northeastern state of Ceará, the country’s driest area, whose water policy has gained international recognition for its efficient management and efforts at educating the public.

Other countries in the region have also recently begun to bill for water consumed, said Mestre, who underscored that the practice encouraged the efficient use of water, as demonstrated by the countries of Scandinavia, which have relatively low levels of consumption despite their enormous wealth in water resources.

Pollution of rivers and other sources of water is another cause of scarcity of clean water, which is fast becoming one of the world’s most pressing problems, and the cause of mushrooming conflicts and disputes.

A daily average of 25,000 people in the world currently die due to lack of clean water, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics.

The case of Sao Paulo highlights the problem of shortages of clean water caused by waste created by society at large and by industry, which is dumped into the rivers that run through the metropolitan region of 17 million, said Garrido.

Water is frequently rationed in Brazil’s largest city and financial and industrial powerhouse, whose main sources of water, like the Billings and Guarapiranga reservoirs, are horribly polluted, largely due to the enormous slums along their banks.

The Tiete River, which runs right through the city, would be able to meet 30 percent of demand if its waters were not so filthy, said Garrido.

That forces the metropolitan region to resort to the expensive undertaking of drawing water from the Piracicaba river, which already serves a number of cities and towns in the interior of the state of Sao Paulo.

The city of Sao Paulo uses the river without paying a thing to the municipalities that keep it clean, a situation that generates tension and conflicts, the official added.

The administration of water as a territorial unit, rather than by municipalities or states, is one of the recent advances seen in water management, according to the experts meeting this week in Foz de Iguazú.

But representatives of civil society are pushing for even greater participation on the mixed committees that define the policies governing each river basin.

In the southeastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, such committees are broken up into four parts: the state government, municipal governments, large water-consuming companies and civil society.

“Our participation has been limited to one-quarter of the representatives,” complained Apolo Heringer Lisboa, coordinator of the Manuelzao Project, a non-governmental initiative that is cleaning up the Das Velhas River, which supplies 4.5 million people in 51 municipalities, including the state capital, Belo Horizonte.

In the activist’s view, participation is more balanced in the state of Sao Paulo, where it is divided into three equal parts: governments, companies and civil society.

Incorporating society in water management decision-making is one of the recommendations to be defended by the Inter-American Dialogue at the Third World Water Forum, to be held in Japan in 2003, and in other international fora on water and the environment.