SPEECH
Throughout history, this poison has held no regard for class, rank, or status – peasants and kings alike have been victim to its grisly affects. More calamitous than the Bhopal and Chernobyl disasters, the Arsenic poisoning crisis that has afflicted millions of people in Bangladesh and Eastern parts of India had no man‐made agent to blame – it was the unwitting brutality Mother Nature is sometimes accountable for.
Groundwater serves as the primary source of potable water for the millions living in these rural and remote areas of the Indian subcontinent, where the naturally‐occurring arsenic, an extremely toxic contaminant, was found in unacceptably high levels – 100 to 500 parts per billion – through geochemical soil leaching.
Enter the brilliant work of scientists from Lehigh University and the Bengal Engineering and Science University who, funded partially by the Water for People organization based in Denver, collaborated to engineer community‐based, well‐head arsenic removal units (ARUs). An ingenious remedy, the operation is entirely manual requiring no electricity or chemical additives and circumvents the need to import any resources. Built from indigenous and durable materials, the units are simply attached to the ground well‐heads where the water passes through beads of activated alumina – an adsorbent that can be cheaply produced in the area ‐ to selectively remove dissolved arsenic without changing the groundwater composition.
Run as a community co‐operative, the operation is culturally compatible while being financed, maintained, and monitored by the villagers themselves. Remarkably, the currently installed 175 units are expected to last for 10 to 15 years without any maintenance while continuing to provide safe drinking water for over 150,000 villagers – at an arsenic concentration of less than 20 parts per billion, a standard set by the World Health Organization. To one up their more urban and well‐heeled counterparts, these units produce a waste by‐product that is being disposed of in ways more appropriate than methods currently being practiced in developed countries.
For its vital contribution to the health and well‐being of marginalized populations, and innovative and sustainable operational methods, the American Society of Civil Engineers is proud to recognize the Arsenic Crisis in the Indian Subcontinent – A Sustainable Engineering Solution Project as OCEA Award of Merit finalist.