Unsafe water

Public-sector water filtration plants, which are considered a main source of safe drinking water for the general public in many parts of the country, have been found to be providing contaminated water in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, owing to the poor operation and maintenance of these facilities.

Studies show that water sources all across Pakistan, be they surface (river, canals, lakes etc.) or ground water, are polluted with toxic chemicals and microbes. The estimates of the proportion of the people who have access to safe drinking water in the country vary from 20 to 50 percent, depending on how much one believes in the official claims and statistics.

Since 2001, Pakistan has chosen government-owned water filtration plants as the means for the provision of potable water to public. Safe potable water can also be provided through pipelines and water tanks, but these options have not been used by the government. At the filtration plants, water passes through a multi-tiered process of filtration and then is made available at the source through taps for the public. People fill their containers with the supposedly safe water for free and take it away for their consumption.

The general public, which cannot afford to buy expensive bottled water from private companies, assumes that the water from these public filtration plants is free of contamination, unlike the water that passes through the old, rusted and cracked water pipelines of municipal authorities. Little independent inquiry had been made into the quality of water from these so-called filtration plants until recently, when a consumer protection non-governmental organisation got the water from these plants tested from three different laboratories.

Shockingly, the research survey conducted by the organisation found microbial contamination in more than 35 percent of the samples of water from the filtration plants in Rawalpindi, and 20 percent of the samples in Islamabad. When filtration plants are in such bad shape in the federal capital and a big city like Rawalpindi, what is happening in small cities and rural areas is anybody’s guess.

This month, the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) own tests on the water from the filtration plants in Islamabad also corroborated the research of the non-governmental organisation. The CDA’s testing revealed that the water from 7 out of 11 filtration plants was contaminated with bacteria. A few years earlier, the Pakistan Council of Research in Water Resources (PCRWR) – the country’s premier research institute – had stated that that 28 out of 33 filtration plants in the federal capital were providing unsafe, contaminated water.

In Islamabad and Rawalpindi, water is said to be free of chemical toxins but polluted with pathogens. The situation is so bad that 38 15-year-old filtration plants in the federal capital have outlived their age but have not been replaced. The CDA did not have the capacity to operate them on its own and outsourced their operation and maintenance to a private party three years ago.

In Rawalpindi, a large number of tube wells are located in close proximity of the Lai nullah-cum-drain, from which sewage seeps down in the groundwater. The sewage, containing human waste, has contaminated the groundwater with different types of bacteria including coliforms, faecal coliforms and E Coli. In order to purify this water, around 150 water filtration plants have been installed in the city, but some of them are non-functional and many of them are not providing safe water.

At the filtration plants, the authorities chlorinate the water and use ultraviolet lamps to kill germs. Still, bacteria have been found in the water samples, indicating that chlorination is not being adequately carried out and that the ultraviolet lamps are either defective or not being replaced on time. The poor water quality of the filtration plants lends credibility to the complaints that the funds meant for the purchase of chlorine are actually being pocketed by corrupted officials and that the authorities are managing the operation and maintenance of these facilities poorly.

The Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) Rawalpindi itself conducts water quality testing at these plants. Some recent reports by the water agency show that the dissolved oxygen level in the water is a lot lower than the WHO’s prescribed limit of 6 to 10 milligrams per litre. This indicates the presence of bio-degradable pollutants in the source water and the non-functioning of the filtration system.

The dubious filtration of water by the government agencies is also reflected in a recent water-testing report of the Rawal Lake filtration plant. The report prepared by WASA Rawalpindi shows the same level of conductance (990 micro Siemens per centimetre) in tube well water and treated water, implying that the filtration process has not led to a reduction in the pollutants in the water.

The problem is that at present the water and sanitation agencies are working without any effective check or accountability. The negligent and corrupt officials working for these public organisations have never been brought to justice, even though their malpractices are responsible for a huge number of deaths owing to water-borne diseases, especially diarrhoea among young children. The government needs to take stringent measures to ensure that the water supply complies with the national quality standards for drinking water. These measures can be taken and implemented by developing comprehensive operating procedures for filtration plants by water agencies and municipal authorities.

The Punjab Environmental Protection Act 1997 (amended in 2012) empowers the provincial Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate water through publically owned water-treatment plants. The EPA needs to play a proactive role in monitoring the water-supplying authorities and enforcing regulations. Currently, these plants are installed without prior certification of their machinery by any regulatory body. This allows for the installation of sub-standard filtration equipment.

The government ought to take legislative and administrative measures to bind WASA and other municipal authorities to test the water from these plants for all parameters of national drinking water quality standards on a fortnightly basis, and replace all filter cartridges, ultraviolet lamps and granular activated carbon accordingly. If the filtration plants are to fulfil the objective of providing safe water to public, they need to be properly operated and maintained.

Email: adnanadilzaidi@gmail.com