Three speakers at the “Water for the Worlds” discussion panel on Tuesday night presented issues that concerned the global water crisis and its impact on developing nations.
The event was sponsored by Rural Water Ventures, which funds the construction of gravity flow water systems to provide clean water for rural Nicaragua, as part of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College’s (UGBC) Green Week.
According to a report from the United Nations, only 2.5 percent of our planet’s water is useable and fresh, 31 countries are facing water depletion, and 1 billion people lack clean drinking water.
The first speaker, Mike Cermak, GA&S ’13, teaches the environmental sociology course Planet in Peril. In 2007, Cermak co-founded Real Food BC, an organization that promotes the consumption of sustainable, local, organic, and fairly traded food on campus.
As part of his presentation, Cermak deconstructed a series of bottled water advertisements that featured celebrity water activists such as Paris Hilton and Jennifer Aniston.
“The image of water has changed to a high status good,” Cermak said. While Bling H2O, SmartWater, and Fiji bottled waters attempt to bring environmental concern to the bottled water industry, 2 million plastic bottles are still being used every 5 minutes in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Cermak also said the bottled water industry has a role to play in nations where portable water is inaccessible. “There is a double-bind between getting clean water and being able to afford it,” he said. “You can’t even collect water in a pan without being charged.”
Multinational corporations such as the Coca-Cola Company buy the water rights of poorer nations, divide up commodities, extract water, and make indigenous peoples pay for the water that fell from the sky, Cermak said.
Since Coke costs less than water in some underdeveloped locations, many health problems arise from imbibing the sugary beverage and not hydrating properly with water, he said. “We [at BC] are a Coke school.”
“Water is everywhere and in these political and personal issues,” Cemark said.
Rosanna Demarco, a professor in the Connell School of Nursing (CSON), spoke second. She discussed the public health perspective of the lack of access to clean drinking water and the diseases tied to this issue.
Waterborne diseases are illnesses caused by drinking water that has been contaminated by human or animal feces that contain pathogenic microorganisms, she said.
In 2005, the third leading cause of death in low-income countries was diarrhea-related disease, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The fourth leading cause was HIV/AIDS. Diarrhea-related diseases accounted for 1.81 million deaths that year.
Demarco explained that beach and coastal pollution, rain, urban runoff, spills, insects, beavers and muskrats, feces, and warm environments cause direct drinking water contamination, while contaminated water used to prepare food, to wash, or that people swim in with open wounds, causes contamination through indirect use.
“Many people don’t even know they’re sick until they start to develop vague symptoms,” Demarco said. Over a period of four to 21 days, infected people may experience headaches, fevers, stomachaches, and rashes. Many infants and children die after suffering from dehydration and malnutrition.
Bill McQueeney, founder of Rural Water Ventures, Inc. and BC ’57, was the third speaker. McQueeney’s nonprofit organization strives to save the lives of rural Nicaraguan villagers by funding projects that grant them access to adequate quantities of safe drinking water and hygienic sanitation in order to reduce serious diseases.
“The projects are built in a way that will last 25 to 50 years,” said McQueeny. The villagers of destitute central Nicaragua sign contracts to commit to the labor for the water projects. “That’s a lot of trenching and a lot of back filling,” McQueeney said. The community development that the Nicaraguan villagers want inspires them to want to build better roads and to install electricity, he said.
The outlets and mandatory latrines that are installed in each backyard “have an absolutely transforming result to people’s lives,” McQueeney said.
McQueeney said that, during his time in Nicaragua, he witnessed pigs and chickens run through one entrance of a doorless Nicaraguan hut and exit the other side, while occasionally stopping to leave “calling cards” in the home where the family lives. McQueeney said the “whole teaching process” of breaking cultural barriers and informing the villagers about the importance of hand washing is important. “Primary prevention is fundamental,” he said.
To fundraise for a current water project in La Isla, Nicaragua, aluminum BPA-free water bottles were sold.
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