Examines the reality and implications of contaminated drinking water in the western world.
The paper discusses how in Third World environments, the problem of contaminated drinking water often relates more to concepts of technological inadequacy than the Western experience of new contaminants having entered previously safe water supplies. The paper explores the nature of Western 21st century water systems and their potential for widespread harm when the relied upon controls or persons are not properly maintained. The paper finds that globalization, in its neo-liberal economic planning and development, does not bode well for future water supply or its quality.
“North Americans have been disturbed by reports of illness and fatalities due to contaminated drinking water, and within a culture zone whose residents have long been accustomed to expecting safe supplies of drinking water. In Walkerton, Ontario, the deaths of several persons due to e.coli bacillus infestation, in a monitored and treated water supply system, produced a scandal where safe drinking water has long been accepted as an almost universal resource. No market force seems to have caused the incident apart from human error or negligence.
“However, the incident in Walkerton, Ontario, does provide needed insight into the nature of Western 21st century water systems and their potential for widespread harm when the relied upon controls or persons are not properly maintained. In what is being referred to as Western postindustrial societies, central water supplies are treated and monitored, and travel to thousands of destinations, their results in terms of disease or death, sometimes registering only slowly. This is described in contrast with the village-ordered model of old whereby a contaminated well or other finite or entirely local water source would usually show its direct results quickly, and in tell-tale concentration.”
“However, the incident in Walkerton, Ontario, does provide needed insight into the nature of Western 21st century water systems and their potential for widespread harm when the relied upon controls or persons are not properly maintained. In what is being referred to as Western postindustrial societies, central water supplies are treated and monitored, and travel to thousands of destinations, their results in terms of disease or death, sometimes registering only slowly. This is described in contrast with the village-ordered model of old whereby a contaminated well or other finite or entirely local water source would usually show its direct results quickly, and in tell-tale concentration.”