Right to Life – Right to drink clean water

‘We don’t want the right to vote, just the right to live,’ the villager said, holding his dying child in his arms.

By Dr. Ranil Senanayake

This is the simple truth that seems to elude most development work. The right to life is more fundamental to humanity than any political or religious goal and certainly, more than the right to profit. The more we look to science to validate modern society, the more evident becomes the conclusion that we humans share the same evolutionary heritage as all other life on this planet and like all living things, we have limits. All living things stressed beyond their limits die. It is as simple as that.

Heat or cool a bacterium, algae or elephant beyond a certain threshold and they die. The same holds true for all elements of the environment, whether they be as innocuous as salt or as toxic as strychnine. But we are facilitated to cross these thresholds in the quest for profit, justified by claims of ‘development’. The fossil energy industry has endangered our right to life, by profiting in selling a planetary eco-toxin, unchallenged by the so-called guardians of our well-being, our elected leaders.

A healthy living environment is the most fundamental right that can be recognised for any human or any other living thing. Freedom from conditions hostile to life must become a basic right. A right to life!

The three basic substances of our biosphere, air, water and earth, share the characteristic that they are all dynamic and vary in quality and quantity from place to place on this planet. They form what can be termed the ‘Global Commons’ a place we all have equal access to in the pursuit of living. However, there is what is generally recognized as the ‘optimal range’ of values for each one of these substances, to render the environment hospitable to life. While my comments today are focused on water, it should be kept in mind that they apply equally to the other two.

Water is a critical element of all living things and it is the medium through which much of life is expressed, all animals and plants including humans are made mostly of water. Water is an essential material for the maintenance of global ecosystems; it is required in the right quality and quantity for each purpose that it is used for.  Water enters a landscape as rain or fog and moves across a landscape, responding to gravity and heat. It flows both above and below the soil level in every terrestrial ecosystem increasing its load of suspended and dissolved solids, organic and inorganic compounds as it flows. The ability to clean groundwater is demonstrated by active soils, wetlands and by evapotranspiration, this critical consideration is important, not only for human sustainability but also for the sustainability of our life support systems.

For Sri Lanka, where 90 percent of household water came from wells or springs, the condition of the surface and shallow aquifer is of critical importance. Internal renewable groundwater resources are estimated at 7.8 km3, most (estimated at 7 km3/year) returning to river systems and being included in the surface water resources estimate. The current trend of polluting surface water, if not checked, would place us in a situation similar to Honduras where almost all surface and shallow aquifer water is polluted and people have to depend on bottled water for drinking.

To protect this critical national resource there should be a National Water Resources policy, but it should emerge from the broadest public discussion possible. In that spirit the framework summarising the work of many authors is submitted below:

Framework National Water Resources Policy

All citizens of Sri Lanka are entitled to have access to clean water, free from pollution, for the preservation of life as a basic human right.

All water resources, excluding rainwater, belong to the people and subsequent to consultation and agreement may be held and managed in trust for them by local and national bodies, elected by the people.

Rainwater is considered part of the land on which it falls and will belong to the person or institution owning or having legal rights to use of the land.

In situations of limited supply, traditionally accepted water use rights for drinking and sanitation will take precedence over all other claims on the resource. Maintenance of livelihoods will be next in the order of precedence.

The unit for planning the development and management of water resources will be the stream or river basin watershed.

Where basins or watersheds are spread across local government boundaries, their utilization and management would be the responsibility of the next higher-level government concerned. Trans-basin and multi-basin development and utilisation of water resources would be managed by authorities set up for the purpose.

Government or Community organisations would be responsible for the distribution of water to users. This responsibility may be contracted out to private organisations where the government or community organisation concerned deems it appropriate.

Water rights will be recognised, with regulations governing allocations in line with local needs and national priorities.

In order to ensure the sustainability of publicly funded water development projects, whether for domestic use, irrigation or commercial purposes, responsibility for the maintenance of the systems would ultimately be handed over to the water users. In the case of large water development projects, the government would support the formation of user organizations for this purpose.

The development of water resources would take economic, social and environmental sustainability into account.

The responsibility for maintaining the quality of a water resource, according to the uses to which it is put, should rest with the users either individually or collectively as the case may be. External polluters of water sources shall be liable, under the law, to appropriate penalties.

Groundwater extraction and pollution will be monitored and appropriately regulated through the relevant institutions in groundwater sensitive areas.

Management of water resources will be devolved or decentralised as provided in prevailing Constitutional provisions.

Water resources should be shared among the demands of major competing uses, including domestic use, irrigation and drainage for agriculture, animal husbandry, fishery, aquaculture, biodiversity maintenance, power generation, industry, tourism and construction in a balanced and integrated manner.

Where there are competing demands for limited water resources, the quantity of water available, after satisfying the demand for domestic supplies and livelihood maintenance, would be allocated based on national and economic priorities rather than financial returns.

In situations of water scarcity, fiscal, and if necessary legal, punitive measures would be taken to prevent wastage, pollution and luxury consumption of water.

All developers of water resources including state agencies, will need to obtain the approval of the National Water Resources Council (NWRC), which should be set up to regulate the development and use of water resources. There will be incentive schemes for the improvement of water quality and quantity increase and disincentive schemes for the reduction of water quality and quantity.

The State will actively promote the integration of gender and public health concerns in policies, plans and programmes in water sector activities

All citizens have an obligation to conserve water, use it judiciously, avoid deliberate contamination and purify it at own cost if inadvertently contaminated.

Deep well groundwater extraction is a non-sustainable activity, although the deep aquifers are slowly charged with deep infiltration of rainwater, it can never be replaced at the rates that deep well extraction demands. This has led to land collapse over certain wells and intrusion of salt into others. Research conducted by the University of Tokyo suggests that it has also contributed to the rising of salt levels.

Living on a densely populated island requires us to be extremely vigilant about our water, its quality, quantity and ownership. How we use and manage our land, air and water resources today will determine the degree of comfort or hardship that the population of tomorrow will inherit. This is too important a topic to be distanced from public discussions or political platforms. Policy needs to be set in respect of how we interact with the global commons, transboundary effects is an obvious one. The smoke from Indonesia affecting Singapore or the haze from India affecting Sri Lanka provides clear examples as to why policy regarding a national position on the Global Commons needs urgent clarification.

Next: Right to Life – Right to breathe clean air