Arsenic and deep wells

I download the Christian Science monitor and read it offline. In the past, we got the paper one to three days after publication and I read it at my leisure. But now it is easier to get the overseas electronic PDF file.
However, usually I don't use it for my "Blog" because I don't read it on line, and don't have links.
One of the good things is that in the culture wars, it tries to be fair. It is "liberal" in the old fashioned sense, seeing the good in all peoples, and allowing a wide range of comments. I've written several letters criticizing a point of view, and had them either published or twice had the writer answer my criticisms. Since I tend to be a bigmouth, it was both glad and humiliating to m e, since I don't really expect to be listened to.

In today's paper on 2-17, there is a long article about well water and arsenic.
Usually all we read about arsenic is that Bush is poisoning us by increasing the legal level of arsenic. Bad bush good environmentalists. Case closed.
However, this article is about arsenic in wells dug in order to give clean water to people in the third world. Alas, although they now don't have to worry about typhoid and various types of dysentary, they now have to worry about the long term consequences of arsenic poisoning.
The answer?
Maybe coaldust...bottom ash (NOT the more toxic Fly ash)...
Or maybe a one dollar plastic bucket of crushed bricks, gravel, sand, and iron nails
Like most stories "under the radar", it affects people quietly. And since it's not Bush's fault, and since the people involved are not politically correct poor people, you won't read about it in the MSM or hear about it on Fox (Athough CNN might cover it in one of their "special reports).
Another proposal is using surface water instead of dep wells...covering them tightly "to prevent biological contamination"...which would cost one thousand dollars per well...
When I worked in Africa, our hospital well was a deep well. I don't know if it was arsenic contaminated or not...but the locals used pond water. The streams were used, but in the dry season the streams might dry up, and women would have to walk for several miles to get their water. They might bathe themselves and the children at the pond, but for daily needs, it meant carrying a jug of water on their heads.
The streams had snails and bilharzia in them (Schistosomiasis). So if you bathed in them, you would have these parasites dig into your leg skin, travel up into the pelvic veins, and attach. If there was a major infection, you would pee blood. (Men called this male menstuation, using the same word as they use for female periods to describe this common phenomenum).
But there was more danger in using such rivers and ponds.
Often they were used by animals, and contained contamination from animal and human waste.
(In our area of Africa, the phrase for "go to the bathroom" was "to to the forest"...in the forest, you had privacy--something lacking in villages where everyone lived close together, the "living room" was the space in front of the sleeping hut, and garbage and waste attracted unwanted flies and insects. Forests also had leaves to use to clean oneself, and one could bury the feces; this not only kept the village clean of human waste, but prevented an enemy from getting your spore to cast a spell on you).
Alas, just like rain run off from farms and golf courses contain fertilizer and pesticide that contaminates nearby rivers, so too we see the local streams contaminated with run off from the forest.
Of course, you could build latrines, but the cultural taboo against such smelly fly filled places were strong...
So you might say, build a well.
When we were in Africa, we did just that.
Most of the locals knew where the ground water was not too deep (usually where trees and bushes remained green during the dry season). But digging is only step one.
You need to know how to line the well when dug. This prevents collapse, and allows the water to settle clear. Traditional wells are lined with stone.
Now, remember, the nearest Home Depot is 200 miles away, in the city. So you just get rocks, right? But rocks are round. How about flat rocks?
In our area, the ruins of Zimbabwe stand tall. Early settlers insisted they were built by the queen of Sheba or some other Mediterranean culture (the terraces of Umtali might indeed have Mediterranean influence, so this is not too far fetched). However, locals know how to make the bricklike rocks that were used for the Zimbabwe ruines.
First, you find a flat rock. They are all over, and indeed, many villages are built on such flat rocks, so as not to wash away in rain storms (remember the bible parable of the house built on a rock and a house built on sand? Same idea here.).
Once you find the rock, you make a fire...and let it burn for one to three days--let the coals heat the rock. Then you get water and remove the coals and pour on lots of water. Voila, the top layer of rock cracks. And since the rocks are layered, it often cracks down to a layer of 2-4 inches. You then take these irregular slabs, and hammar them into the right size for what you need.
So one of our "brothers" ( a man with vows but not a priest) gave well digging classes to the villages who wanted to participate. And then these villages dug the wells, got the rocks, and lined them.
Now you have a pit with water in the bottom.
Problem. Animals in the dry season will smell the water and try to drink...and fall in.
If this happens, the well is contaminated.
Indeed, not only animals but small children can die this way.
So this is where the missions helped. We got money for simple pumps. And we petitioned a government office for concrete for slabs. And when the wells were done, Brother Charles and his boys (i.e. teenagers who were learning how to fix things as his apprentices) went out, and placed the slabs with the pumps.

Our well digging was the first step: Water closer to the villages, so that hands and utensils would be washed more often, washing could be done without risking schistosomiasis, and major contamination from dead animals and fecal material was decreased.
But you still had the problem of run off.However, these were not ideal, since the run off from the forests still contaminated the wells. But it was better than nothing.
Now, in this article, it mentions how DEEP wells were dug to prevent disease.
Like water filtration devices, by the time the water perculates down to the deep aquaphors, it is cleared of fecal material.
Alas, it also picks up minerals from the rocks.
This water was essentially disease free...so deep well water is a great improvement over our 20 foot deep wells...but now, twenty years later, the slow injestion of arsenic is starting to cause problems (arsenic accumulates in the body).
So instead of dying of cholera you have a low grade but increasing problem.
Water treatment plants will be the future, but for now various people are trying to find ways to remove the arsenic.
Sand, brick dust and iron nails is one. And coal ash is another. Like charcoal, they leach the poison to their surface area.
And those who thirty years ago would be dying of cholera but now are alive will now get improved water.
But of course, you won't hear about it in the MSM...
Michael Jackson's case is much more important.
Johnny Cochrane, call your office..