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Contamination and chlorinationChristchurch Water Under Threat - Save our drinking water from contamination and chlorination
You can help stop Christchurch ending up with a very restricted supply of badly contaminated and expensive water.
Save Our Water launch - 10 July 2007
Christchurch used to have one of the best and purest water supplies of
any city in the world. Now the quantity and quality of the water
available to the city is declining and over the next few years this
will rapidly accelerate unless urgent action is taken.
The reduced amount of water in city aquifers has allowed salt water to
get into the aquifers and this situation will get progressively worse
as the amount of water taken for irrigation continues to increase at a
rapid rate.
When water is used for irrigation and mixed with fertilisers, some of
it gradually seeps back into aquifers serving Christchurch and other
urban communities. This water is contaminated with animal effluent (
poo and wee ) and with corrosive chemicals, toxic fluorides and cancer
causing nitrates.
There are already some Canterbury communities where water quality is
below World Health Organisation standards and some residents have
suffered serious illnesses as a result of drinking water from the local
water supply. Residents have been advised to buy water or boil it
before drinking. However, boiling will not remove those contaminants
which cause cancers and long term health problems.
In North America and Europe the overallocation of water and the use of
unsustainable farming practices has devastated the environment in many
areas. Contamination of depleted drinking water supplies has led to
illnesses and even deaths in some urban communities. We need to learn
from these experiences and try and avoid them happening here.
If the Central Plains Water Scheme goes ahead this will result in huge
quantities of animal effluent lying around untreated west of
Christchurch. The quantity is estimated to be 20 to 30 time greater
than the sewage produced by Christchurch residents. Micro biologists
working in Christchurch medical laboratories are very concerned about
animal effluent seeping into drinking water aquifers and causing a huge
increase in the already high levels of serious illnesses from
campylobacter, crypto sporidium and viruses.
Unless action is taken before it is too late, Christchurch water will
have to go through filtration plants and be chlorinated. The chlorine
will not taste good and it will not deal with the cancer causing
nitrates and various toxic and corrosive chemicals from fertilisers.
The way these chemicals eat into metals can be easily seen in the
photograph below. The adverse affect they have on the human body has
been the subject of hundreds of scientific studies.
If in years to come water problems continue to escalate and drinking
from the rural sewer becomes too dangerous for Christchurch residents,
it may be necessary to have to recycle water from urban sewers, as has
happened in Perth and Queensland.
Those who can afford it will probably end up buying bottled water.
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