20 million Bangladeshis exposed to arsenic-laced water: Report

KHIRDASDI, Bangladesh — For more than two decades, Nasima Begum and her family have been drawing water from a tube well painted red to warn Bangladeshi villagers that it’s tainted by arsenic, knowing they’re slowly poisoning themselves. “We use this water for washing, bathing and drinking,” the 45-year-old said. There is simply no other option. Taking loans from neighbors to care for her ailing husband and four children, she has nothing left to invest toward digging a new tube well that goes deeper to reach safe water. But she shouldn’t have to, according to a government program aimed at establishing safe tube wells in poor villages. That hasn’t happened for this impoverished village, a clutch of tin-roofed huts set amid farm fields about an hour’s drive from Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital. Nor has it happened in countless other villages still relying on arsenic-contaminated groundwater decades after it was revealed as a major threat across the country. An estimated 20 million people in Bangladesh are still being poisoned by arsenic-tainted water — a number that has remained unchanged from 10 years ago despite years of action to dig new wells at safer depths, according to a new report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. The New York-based rights group blames nepotism and neglect by Bangladeshi officials, saying they’re deliberately having new wells dug in areas convenient for friends, family members and political supporters and allies, rather than in places where arsenic contamination is highest or large numbers of poor villagers are being exposed. Government officials refused requests by The Associated Press for comment on the findings. Human Rights Watch based its report on a survey of about 125,000 government wells dug from 2006 to 2012 specifically to give villagers safer options, after an earlier survey of 5 million wells found millions exposed to water that exceeded Bangladesh’s arsenic contamination limit of 50 parts per billion. Bangladesh’s limit, which is the same as in neighboring India, is far higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 10 ppb. “What we found was basically poor governance,” said Human Rights Watch senior researcher Richard Pearshouse, who authored the report. “There is no technical problem that can’t be solved if the political will is there. But what we see is that the government is using many of its valuable resources in areas where there is no need for deep tube wells from the government.” Arsenic is a naturally occurring and toxic element found in the soil and groundwater of some areas of the world, including vast delta regions like Bangladesh and eastern India. It also kills about 45,000 Bangladeshis every year. At least 30 countries have been found to have arsenic in their groundwater, including the U.S., Canada and China. Scientists first discovered arsenic in Bangladesh’s groundwater in 1993, sounding alarm bells worldwide about a massive public health crisis pouring from the millions of hand-cranked tube wells tapping water from underground. — AP