Cassie Bence
Mr. Zarwell
Global Studies Seminar
Mass Poisoning
In chapter seven, ‘The World’s Largest Mass Poisoning,’ in the book, When the Rivers Run Dry, Fred Pearce, the author, argues that UNICEF and other government foundations who try to help and provide the world’s poor with safe water, in fact are making matters worse for the poor villagers. He finds that the villagers living in Hirapur, India around the wells the foundations are digging seem poisoned. Since the surface water they were drinking before the wells was often polluted with sewage that spread many waterborne diseases leading to death, the foundations and villagers assume that the wells will contain safe and drinkable water for them. Pearce argues that after the free agencies digs the wells for the villages they do not check the water to be safe, he listens to the villagers telling him that they did not and do not still keep checking the water. Pearce’s argument is very convincing because it is based on villager’s symptoms that relate straight to certain poisonings right after they start to drink the water from the wells. UNICEF figures that digging deeper under the polluted surface water will fix the unsafe water problems that the villagers are facing; little do they know that nature can also poison water and make it unsafe to drink.
Pearce’s open and sensitive stature leads him to hearing village stories of the town’s residents and their sufferings. He first finds a ten year old boy limping down a muddy path with knocked knees. Talking to some of the villagers he finds out that the boy’s disability is permanent and that he had been poisoned recently. The villager’s share with Pearce, “he had been poisoned by the water in the well at the village school. His bones were grossly deformed by fluoride dissolved in the water” (49). Pearce has no idea what he has found here in the village. Evidently this school well is one of millions around the world designed to provide safe water to the world’s poor. Shatap, the young boy, is also one of millions who is drinking from this well. He and his siblings both show the symptoms of fluoride poisoning from just drinking the water at their school. Pearce hears that Krishna a girl in the village has also been poisoned badly. Pearce shares, “Bowlegged Krishna had given up education because, after being poisoned at her primary school, she couldn’t walk to the secondary school in the next village” (50). Krishna gives up her education to the poison which has consumed her body. Now almost every child in the village had some symptoms of poisoning from the wells.
Fluoride is a major component found in the granite rock that underlines much of India. It slowly dissolves from the bedrock into the groundwater and normally stays around the granite rock. However when the village uses the wells more and more and drains water from them the wells surface water drops lower and closer to the bedrock where the chances of bringing up toxic water increases. A lot of rural India is suffering from fluoride poisoning, but nobody knows exactly how many are. Pearce estimates that around 60 million could be suffering to some degree.
Fluoride poisoning isn’t the only faulty toxicant that seeps into the ground water. Bangladesh has a major source of arsenic underground starting up in the Himalayan Mountains. Pearce explains that at least 12 million backyard tube wells contain arsenic poisoning. The arsenic has been washing down the mountains for millions of years and it accumulating in the floodplains that make up most of Bangladesh. Pearce argues that these floodplains and deltas were fine holding the arsenic and did not harm humans until 30 years ago when humans starting pumping water out of the mud to drink. Pearce blames the British and other government charities such as from the UN agencies, and UNICEF for the thousands of people being poisoned today since they were the ones to dig the 900,000 wells in the first place and not make sure the water was safe for humans. Villagers being informed that they have arsenic poisoning from their drinking wells aren’t too happy either. Pearce describes his talk with one village man who was lashing out, “One villager was angry that international aid had provided such a poisoned chalice and asked about installing a deeper well to bypass the arsenic-bearing water. “I am rich; I can afford it,”” (53). Learning that the wells which his family drinks from is poisoned he wishes to do something, but Pearce already knows it is too late, they have been drinking from this well long enough to know they will all be suffering soon and maybe all even die. Akhtar Ahmad a scientist decides to test the water and finds the water from which the villagers are drinking from contains 500 parts per billion of arsenic, this goes over the Bangladeshi limit and way over the World Health Organization level. Pearce then states that the test for finding contaminants in the water was very cheap, the organizations could have easily tested the water to make sure it was safe.
Millions of rural poor drinking the water from the wells dug by government charities find themselves sick and suffering poisoning symptoms. As much as these agencies are known for helping, as Pearce argues and may be right, they are making matters worse by not following through with the wells they dig and test the water frequently. He believes that the foundation thought the only source of unsafe water was from sewage and pollution, when they forgot that nature can also poison water. Catastrophically, millions of India’s rural poor are sickly poisoned and may die due to lethal concentrations of the toxicants which lie within their only source of drinking water.
Works Cited
Pearce, Fred. When The Rivers Ran Dry: Water—the definition. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 2006.
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