Let us stop for a moment and contemplate the delicacy of a society. We Americans know that electricity flows when we flip the switch, that water flows when we turn on the tap, and that toilets flush when we push the lever. But the incredible municipal systems that have allowed us to advance beyond the desperate scramble for life's basic needs are interconnected -- and in the face of failure of one, they all begin to shatter. The New York Times published today a portrait of the water and sewage situation in New Delhi -- a terrifying image of a city in which one municipal failure cascades into another, until
the water dries up and the rivers flow with shit.
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"Imagine never being thirsty for water," says an ad for a Delhi apartment building that boasts private water supplies. My God -- imagine being thirsty for water!
Listen to what happens when water is not a given:
"Every day, Ritu Prasher, a homemaker in a middle-class neighborhood of this capital, rises at 6:30 a.m. and begins fretting about water. It is a rare morning when water trickles through the pipes. More often, not a drop will come. So Mrs. Prasher will have to call a private water tanker, wait for it to show up, call again, wait some more and worry about whether enough buckets are filled in the bathroom in case no water arrives. {…} On average, she gets no more than 13 gallons a month from the tap."
"As the Yamuna River enters the capital, still relatively clean from its 246-mile descent from atop the Himalayas, the city's public water agency, the New Delhi Jal Board, extracts 229 million gallons every day from the river, its largest single source of drinking water. As the Yamuna leaves the city, it becomes the principal drain for New Delhi's waste. Residents pour 950 million gallons of sewage into the river each day. Coursing through the capital, the river becomes a noxious black thread. Clumps of raw sewage float on top. Methane gas gurgles on the surface. A government audit found last year that the level of fecal coliform, one measure of filth, in the Yamuna was 100,000 times the safe limit for bathing."
"Many New Delhi neighborhoods, like Janata Colony — Hindi for People's Colony — are not even connected to sewage pipes. Open sewers hem the narrow lanes of the slum. Every alley carries their stench. Some canals are so clogged with trash and sludge that they are no more than green-black ribbons of muck. It is a mosquitoes' paradise. Malaria and dengue fever are regular visitors. Not long ago, a 2-year-old boy named Arman Mustakeem fell into one such canal and drowned. His parents said they found him floating in the open sewer in front of their home. These canals empty into a wide storm drain. It, in turn, runs through the eastern edges of the city, raking in more sewage and cascades of trash, before it merges with effluent from two sewage treatment plants, and finally, enters the Yamuna."
What makes this story relevant to us is that New Delhi isn't lacking in water. The problem isn't supply. It's infrastructure. Leaky pipes waste 25-40 percent of the city's water supply. Water pressure tanks as people tap into the pipes, taking what they desperately need at the expense of the rest of the system. Massive sewage treatment plants lay idle when the power goes out. This isn't a problem of environment -- it's a cascade of human failings. Greed, desperation, ignorance, and incompetence.
Could that happen in America? Don't say "no" yet. Think about the power situation in California. Think about the water situation in the southwest. Think about the corruption of officials and the greed of utilities. Could it happen in America? Don't say "no" yet.
Imagine being thirsty for water.
