Institute discusses water issues

By Austin Miller

Seventy-one percent of Earth’s surface is covered by water, yet the Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation estimates 748 million people lack access to quality drinking water.

The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute hosted a lecture Wednesday evening to discuss the current problems with water—specifically the scarcity of water in Sub-Saharan regions of Africa.

David Yepsen, director of the institute, said he hopes the lecture raised awareness of water concerns in southern Illinois.

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“Some people might not think it’s important to America because it’s not right here at home,” he said. “It’s important that the world be stable, important that the world have prosperity and it’s important that the world be healthy. America has an interest in all of that.”

While awareness is raised in the U.S., a majority of the problem is in African countries, where people are in need of clean drinking water. Less than 50 percent of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritania have access to unpolluted water. Seventy-five percent of people in Nigeria, Kenya, Angola and other countries have access to uncontaminated water, according to the water monitoring program.

Sanitation is an issue John Oldfield, CEO of WASH Advocates, said he sees frequently as well. He said in parts of Africa and Asia, human waste is the largest water pollutant. WASH Advocates is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to solve the challenges associated with global safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene.

Oldfield said those countries do not have proper restroom facilities and the people who live there do not see their waste as a pollutant.

The water monitoring program estimates more than one billion people in the world do not use bathrooms, with 638 million in India. Oldfield said he has experienced this firsthand.

“You can’t take a train through India without seeing people defecating out in the open,” he said.

Oldfield said water polluted with human waste can lead to diarrheal diseases like dysentery and cholera, which can kill if not treated. He said between one and three million children die from those illnesses annually.

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In parts of the Middle East, young girls are forced to be “human pipes” and bring water back to their villages, Oldfield said.

“These girls should be going to school and carrying textbooks, not water,” he said.

Oldfield said there are water-impoverished places in the U.S. and issues with contamination. He said hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is a technique to harvest natural gas which can be a source of contamination.

He said California is amid a three-year drought and created new legislation to manage its water.

He said there are many ways people can reduce their own consumption. For example, taking shorter showers, turning the water off while brushing teeth and watering lawns less frequently.

Oldfield said he hopes today’s water issues will be solved by 2030.

“Everybody on the planet is going to have safe drinking water,” he said. “We know how to solve these issues. We don’t have to invent new things to help people. It’s all preventable.”

Former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, founder of the institute, authored “Tapped Out: The Coming World Crisis in Water and What We Can Do About It,” in 1998. The book played a major role in bringing water issues to the public and the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005 was named after him for his work in the field.

An updated version of the 2005 bill is working its way through Congress. The Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2013 seeks to improve the U.S. government’s distribution of aid by using updated technologies and increased spending.

Patti Derge Simon, Paul Simon’s wife, and John Oldfield, CEO of WASH Advocates, were keynote speakers at the event.

Patti Simon said she is proud to continue the legacy of her late husband.

“I feel very fortunate,” she said. “It’s been an incredible experience to meet all of these people that are helping. It is a blessing to do this.”

Austin Miller can be reached at [email protected]or on Twitter @AMiller_DE.

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