Access to clean water a big problem in Latinoamerica(1)

More than 20 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean lacks basic sanitation and 15 percent has no access to drinking water because of poor management, said experts at a conference in Brazil.

"It must be recognized that water quality is a serious problem, with high levels of pollution due to bad management and poor governance. Water reserves in aquifers are rapidly being depleted," said Walter Ubal of the Canadian government's International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Urbanization is increasing the demand for water, and so the cost of providing and purifying it has become "extremely high," said this expert on natural resource and environmental management, attending the 14th World Water Congress in Porto de Galinhas, a beach resort in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco.

The conference, which took place in the last week of September, was organized by the Pernambuco state government and the International Water Resources Association (IWRA), an NGO network of experts on sustainable water use.

"The worst of it is that we are using water treatment options that may be more costly and generate greater environmental impacts than they need to," said Ubal, who acknowledged that no method of purifying water is completely sustainable.

"We need to find the least harmful methods, which can also be tailored to social needs," he said.

"This involves a huge effort, because a large sewage treatment plant can produce odors and drive down housing prices, involving social questions which are more complex than merely technical matters," he said.

Since April Adalberto Noyola, head of the Engineering Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), has been coordinating a team of experts studying sewage treatment plants in the region in search of more sustainable processes and technologies to improve the situation in Latin America.

The aim of the research project, which covers Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Mexico, is to assess the environmental impacts of the region's most commonly used treatment technologies and identify strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Noyola said.

"Wastewater is treated in order to avoid polluting soils, rivers and seas; as society develops and water demand increases, many regions are seeking to reuse water for irrigating farmland and for industry, although not as yet for household use," he said.

In Brazil and Mexico, which between them are home to half the total population of Latin America and the Caribbean, around 30 to 40 percent of wastewater is treated.

Chile was included in the study because its water and sanitation services are similar to "those of industrialized countries, because of its continuous, long-term policy of water privatization," said Noyola. By 2012, Chile will be treating 100 percent of its wastewater, he said.

In contrast, the Dominican Republic and Colombia only treat 25 percent of sewage, while in Guatemala just 10 or 15 percent is treated.