×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

The water you’re drinking is killing you!

News
WATER is a basic human right, not a luxury or a privilege. The precious liquid is vital for human survival as well as for fauna and flora.

WATER is a basic human right, not a luxury or a privilege. The precious liquid is vital for human survival as well as for fauna and flora.

Ropafadzo Mapimhidze

But when the available water is declared unhealthy for human consumption, what alternative source is there for people to access clean, potable water?

A recent report by five medical researchers which revealed that all water bodies in Zimbabwe are contaminated sent shock waves among citizens. The findings noted that most wells, boreholes, dams and water pipes were contaminated with substances that cause cancer.

“I would not encourage anyone to drink water or use it for cooking in Harare because it is a death trap. In Seke communal lands, 100% of the boreholes are contaminated with bacteria. This is very close to an urban setting and so what about those areas far away like Binga, what is the situation?” a chemical pathologist Dr Hildah Matarira said in her presentation at a Brown Bag Meeting at Unicef offices recently.

The report demonstrates a dereliction of duty on the part of the government which has failed, through local authorities, to provide clean water to nearly 10 million people living in Zimbabwe.

 

A Harare-based doctor who also did his research on water said boiling water, which has become a relief to those who cannot afford purified water or access boreholes, was not a solution.

“Boiled water does not change water composition because it only kills bacteria, but the chemical waste is not destroyed. People are being cheated that when you put those tablets to treat water it becomes safe to drink,” he said. “This is a national crisis because even the borehole water sucks waste from underground.” The researcher said there is no supply of clean water and that water from Lake Chivero and its fish are also contaminated.

“The government is broke and it can’t afford to fix the sewage system connected to Lake Chivero. The water hyacinth at the lake has choked the lake and there were plans to introduce fish that could eat up that weed. But it was discovered that the fish also would eat food for other fishes in that ecological system,” he said.

The researcher noted that Mt Pleasant, for instance, has had no water for the past five years and that most residents have drilled boreholes.

“But what of people in areas like Dzivaresekwa, Hatcliffe and many other high density areas? These people are drinking contaminated water from shallow wells and council water from the taps,” he said. These sentiments were echoed by University of Zimbabwe School of Biological Sciences Professor Chris Magadza. “All water wells in Epworth for example, are contaminated with faeces. Shallow wells are very dangerous and the water has to be boiled. We blame the municipality, but it’s not the council that has created dirty water, but us the residents of this city,” Magadza said.

He, however, said the municipality should accept part of the blame because waste water treatment facilities were either partially functional or not functional at all. As a result millions of litres of raw sewerage flowed into Lake Chivero.

“It is unfortunate that Lake Chivero is located where it is because we get water from there with most of our sewage going back to the same lake. There is, however, nothing wrong with returning sewage to a water supply dam for as long as we are able to treat the water adequately and we used to do that properly,” Magadza said.

He noted that Chitungwiza, which has a population of nearly two million people, does not have a functional waste treatment plant.

As far as safety is concerned, Magadza said, water can be extracted from a polluted lake which can be treated to acceptable health standards. “I do believe that Harare City Council goes some way towards producing potable water, but the amount of chemicals they have to add in it to kill the germs, bugs, bacteria and so forth may affect people’s health.

“If you have a lake with low organic matter like Kariba, chlorine, which is standard dosage for killing bacteria will clear the bugs in the water. But with Lake Chivero, decaying matter combines with chlorine to form poisonous substances. That chlorine finds other chemicals in the water and in turn hurts your health when you drink it,” he said.

Medical research has shown that liver cancer emanating from polluted water is killing 15 times more than HIV-related complications.

“We found a lot of that in Lake Chivero and health impacts are there and they are real. The cause of water pollution in Lake Chivero is twofold; sewage is one of them and it has faecal bacteria and this can be killed. The other source is when a lake is very rich in nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen. When temperatures are high, the composition of algae is dominated by what we call blue greens.

And in their growth and metabolism they produce these microcystins. You can have a lake that does not receive any sewage at all, but because it receives a lot of fertilisers high in nitrogen and phosphorous it has a high load of these algae,” Magadza said.

He said the source of nitrogen and phosphorous came from sewage as well as diffused sources adding that filth from the environment finds its way to Lake Chivero.

“Every open piece of land in Harare has been cultivated and when it rains fertilizer is washed off into the lake. The source of fertilizer in the lake is run off from the streets due to urban agriculture and destruction of wetlands,” he said. Although Zimbabwe has received good rains this year, Magadza said water supply from rainfall has declined.

“I went to Bindura a few days ago and I expected to find Mazowe Dam full, but it is half full and nearing the end of the rainy season. In other words, water supply by rainfall is decreasing.

“Manyame River used to flow all year round, but that doesn’t happen anymore because there is nothing to hold the water. Wetlands have been damaged largely by livestock and people growing maize and other crops,” he said.

He added that wetlands were expected to absorb rain, hold it and release some of the water during the dry seasons, but that did not happen anymore.” Urban agriculture and infrastructural development were the major causes of wetlands destruction, he said.

“When Lake Chivero was designed, it was done in such a way that when we have a drought, that lake could supply water for the next three years. The lake looks full right now, but an engineer recently estimated that Harare had lost close to a whole year’s supply of water to the mud underneath it.

“Before independence, Lake Chivero was 27 metres deep, but about two to three months ago we measured and found that it is now 18 metres deep. We now have lost tiger fish and Manyame salmon because the oxygen levels in the lake are now too low.”

“The water hyacinth, the weed at Lake Chivero, grows so fast and pumps out a lot of water, but is harmful because it suppresses oxygen which benefits the ecological system in the water,” he said.

Magadza said Salisbury Municipality (predecessor of Harare Municipality) then sought advice on how best to deal with the weed, and they were told that sewage produced was very rich and hence fertilised the lake.

“Pollution in Chivero started in the 60s and the weed was just as bad as it was in Lake Kariba. Salisbury council decided to build Firle Sewage Works which was designed to remove phosphorous and nitrogen so that water produced was as good as water from water springs. We succeeded and the water hyacinth disappeared,” he said.

But after independence, Prof Magadza said, local municipality authorities became lax resulting in the present scenario of persistent water shortages. “I belonged to a group called the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) for 25 years as a committee member and I persuaded this team to come and have a look at our water.

“We went to Chitungwiza about 12 years ago where a brand new water works had been built 10 years earlier and when these experts asked why it was not working they said it stopped working the year it was installed and all that it needed was replacement of a switch. That is negligence.

“But I do not want to be hard on Chitungwiza because the state of sewage works there reflect the politics of the 60s when colonialists pushed industry to Seke rural so that blacks did not come to Harare for work.

That town will remain a dormitory town because it has no revenue base to provide water and electricity to its residents. Magadza noted that all shallow wells are dangerous and that research done in Epworth found that all water wells in that area were contaminated with faeces because of the high concentration of pit latrines.