Water and Sanitation

7 Apr 12

One month in country today

I find it a bit comical that a lecture on clean water and sanitation can trigger such a strong emotional response. I feel like for that to maybe make sense there needs to be a bit of a back story:

Before flying (using jet fuel, I’m aware) to Africa, I watched and reviewed some twenty films regarding some aspect of sustainability to promote awareness at my University in Fairbanks Alaska for Sustainable Movie Night, featured at our school pub (please visit THIS WEBSITE for more information or HERE for a list of films).

I should also concede that I recognize the nature of documentaries as being biased and offering one side of the story even when they offer two perspectives. The purpose is typically to promote someone’s agenda. That being said, the information isn’t just coming out of thin air but should be considered objectively (when possible).

Add to all of that that I’m a person (nit laa, in Wolof) that’s going to take in all of the inputs and offer a different spin on an output.

What I find frustrating is this idea of promoting water sanitation and hygiene when our own country can’t even keep our own water clean. The cleanliness situation is vastly different in the two situations but the principle of the matter remains the same which is safe drinking water.

In West Africa, and much of the developing world, the problem is of sanitation and sickness from water borne illnesses. Death by diarrhea isn’t something we have to worry about in the states but it accounts for a significant amount of infant deaths here (roughly accounting for 30% or 1.5 million infant deaths, more than from HIV and Malaria combined, where 14% of those can be prevented by proper hand washing).

In the states, the problems I refer to are perhaps a bit more complicated, but are still issues of clean and safe drinking water. These problems are regarding the toxic chemicals entering our bodies of water from hydraulic fracturing (yes, I’m taking it there, and yes, please, offer the other side of the story because I would love to feel less freaked out by what I’ve heard). In the states too, we might not have the education system down to a perfect art, not by a long shot, but if we are going to compare these W. African countries with my home one I’d say the education level is a bit more prevalent back home where at least a good majority of citizens have a HS diploma which is not the case in The Gambia or Senegal.

We also have the legislation in place, and mostly, some awareness of the importance of clean drinking water and chemicals being bad, etc. As I understand it, that legislation is lifted for the purposes of natural gas drilling. A table of the most commonly used chemicals can be found from the site below:

Source: U.S. House of Reps Committee on Energy and Commerce. April 2011. Retrieved from: http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Hydraulic%20Fracturing%20Report%204.18.11.pdf

In addition;

The BTEX compounds – benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene – appeared in 60 of

the hydraulic fracturing products used between 2005 and 2009. Each BTEX compound is a

regulated contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act and a hazardous air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Benzene also is a known human carcinogen. The hydraulic fracturing companies injected 11.4 million gallons of products containing at least one BTEX chemical over the five year period. –U.S. HofR Comm of Energy, 2011

For a complete list of chemicals and for a more thorough report, please refer to the abovementioned citation as well as explore for yourself the other cost of energy.

But we need energy…. I know. We do. And burning natural gas gives off almost half the amount of CO₂ as traditional fossil fuels. And for the most part we have the infrastructure as well as the abundant “free” resources, there for the taking.

Alternatives such as solar and wind are expensive and other excuses, and geothermal, well, also typically requires or involves fracturing.

So what? I mean hopefully by now, even if you’re not an environmentalist or big fan of nature, the above frightens you a bit solely because clean drinking water is an essential need for human life, (as are the fish and the birds and the trees as it’s all connected, etc. etc.).

So why write about this while serving as a PCV in W. Africa (not that I’m a PCV yet but almost!). As a PCV I represent the American people. And encouraging residents of W. Africa to adopt more sustainable practices makes me personally feel like a hypocrite knowing that “my own people” if you will, aren’t all doing the same thing. That my own people would actually come into my country of service and destroy or set back any good we try to do if there was a market for gas or oil or whatever. Because that’s what we’ve done. Chevron went into S. America and the Amazon and created a very oily mess (from the film, Crude, also you can check out: http://chevrontoxico.com/ for another biased opinion).

Despite that I promise to give my site and The Gambia my all to try to help them improve their environmental practices to ensure for the same to better quality of life for future generations of Gambians.

I just don’t want the work to be in vain by not practicing such clean practices simply because we can “afford” or rather, not afford (energy) to do them.

It’s difficult for any of us to not be hypocrites if we preach about sustainability. We all that we do is not necessarily necessary and it all comes at the cost of the environment. But we do it because this is the life we’ve established.

I guess I can only hope, especially since I’m not presently in the United States, that as thousands of U.S. citizens all over the world work towards a more sustainable future in developing countries, we can try to practice the same in our home country to help us feel at least supported out here by our nation, and not as if we are practicing the opposite of what we do back home. Because personally, regardless of how excited and successful we can get people out here to be sustainable, if they were to ever really find out how un-sustainable the states were, all of that work could be for not.