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For most people, it would be difficult to stop using their water source and to find a new one. Before they knew that the tubewells were contaminated, Bangladeshis spent an average of twenty minutes per day retrieving water. Now that they must find an alternative, it can take 220 minutes per day to retrieve water, with immeasurable consequences to personal and communal productivity. Accordingly, it is not enough to teach individuals about the dangers of arsenic and tell them how to get to the closest safe well. Instead, aid workers must assume that people will always head to the nearest well and act accordingly. This is a problem that must be tackled from a social perspective rooted in equity and urgency.
For obvious reasons, the first step is to provide clean water in rural areas. Clean water can help reduce the affects of arsenic even in people who have already been exposed. Engineers have proposed sinking deeper wells, to reach a level where sediment has been flushed clean of arsenic. In the August 2004 issue of Scientific American, Dr. Chowdhury wrote that "the long-term solution might instead lie in deep tubewells, which extract water from aquifers 200 meters or farther underground ... Geologists agree that the risk of arsenic in deep aquifers is low, but before a few million such tubewells are dug, they need to be absolutely sure." Experts also suggest harvesting rainwater, filtering and treating surface water, and providing household filters. But no progress will be made until these ideas are adapted to work in rural, poor areas.
Painting a red 'X' will not suffice as a solution to this accidental yet massive poisoning. The international community, local officials, and community workers must collaborate to test all of the wells in the country, provide clean water, educate Bangladeshis about arsenicosis, treat skin lesions, and monitor for other diseases. Most important, officials must ensure that the rural poor receive adequate and appropriate help. Given that the poisoning resulted from a combined project of the Bangladeshi state, the World Bank, and UNICEF, these groups have a responsibility to develop a multi-faceted, cooperative effort to address "arsenic- mediated poverty" on the national level. Bangladesh faces an unprecedented crisis in the most essential resource, and this emergency needs to be managed accordingly - not with red paint.
Hilary Frankel is a sophomore at Yale University.