PARAGUAY: Bottled Water Scare Exposes Threat to Groundwater

• by Natalia Ruiz Díaz (asunciÓn)
• Wednesday, December 23, 2009
• Inter Press Service

The Patiño aquifer 'can no longer be recommended as a source of bottled water, because it no longer meets the conditions for water quality,' Félix Villar, a member of the Paraguayan Association of Water Resources and a professor at the National University engineering school's groundwater department, told IPS.

According to the National Office on Environmental Health, 40 percent of this land-locked South American country's population of 6.1 million uses water from the Patiño aquifer, which lies below Greater Asunción.

The aquifer stretches for 173 square kilometres beneath the capital, which is in the most densely populated and urbanised Central department (province), and under part of the Paraguari department, in the southwest of the country.

The water quality problem hit the headlines when the National Food and Nutrition Institute (INAN) issued a press release in late November on the results of tests it had carried out on mineral water from 11 bottled water companies, saying faecal coliform bacteria had been found in some of the samples.

The statement caused a commotion, with consumer groups demanding that the agency, which is under the Public Health Ministry, release the names of the firms that had been monitored.

But INAN refused to provide the names of the companies, and downplayed the issue, saying it involved isolated incidents and that the firms had already corrected the problems.

The Contraloría General (Inspector General's Office) then asked INAN for a report on the results of the monitoring tests, to determine whether they indicated contamination of the Patiño aquifer.

In response, the agency said its statement had been misinterpreted and distorted by the press, and that it was not true that bacteria were found in the water sold by 11 companies.

The ASUCOP consumers' association of Paraguay then urged the public not to buy mineral water until guarantees of its safety and quality were provided.

There are currently 360 registered industrial water wells in the area of the Patiño aquifer, which extract some 249 million litres of water a year, used by hundreds of water bottling plants, soft drink, beer and dairy companies, cold-storage plants and car wash firms.

Only 65 percent of households in Paraguay receive piped drinking water from the national grid, while a significant part of the population depends on wells for domestic consumption.

A total of nearly 176 million litres of water a year enter the aquifer, 73 million less than what is extracted for industrial and domestic uses, according to a study on 'Policies on the Environmental Management of the Patiño Aquifer'.

Not only is the quantity of groundwater insufficient, but the quality of the water is declining as a result of domestic and industrial waste, lack of controls and monitoring of wells, the growing number of companies drilling wells, and a lack of oversight and regulation.

'Based on a series of studies carried out since 2000, we have noted a significant increase in contamination with nitrate (levels higher than 45 mg per litre), which comes from sewage,' said Professor Villar.

In 2006, the engineering school where he teaches issued a warning that the groundwater reserves were increasingly polluted, mainly from faecal matter. Of 100 samples of water that were analysed, 34 had bacteria levels above the acceptable limit for human consumption.

The studies reflected the problem of lack of sanitation. Only 23 percent of households in the area of the Patiño aquifer are connected to the sewage system, while 77 percent use cesspools, which often leak into the groundwater.

But Villar pointed out that the amount of water replenishing the aquifer would decrease if the sewage flow from cesspits diminished. To compensate for that once sanitation has been extended, he proposes piping water into the aquifer from the Paraguay river.

The studies also revealed an increase in saltwater from Paraguay's Chaco region, a semi-arid expanse of dense thorn scrubland that covers the northwestern and western two-thirds of the country.

The Chaco has a shallow saline groundwater table that is causing high salinity levels in wells near the Paraguay river.

'These are freshwater areas that have become increasingly salinated, through natural processes,' said Villar.

Fernando Larroza, director of water resources in the Environment Ministry, told IPS that 10 years ago the public was completely unaware of the threats to the country's groundwater.

'Today we have more information on the aquifers, but we don't have the resources to undertake government plans to protect them,' he said. As an example, he cited the 2007 law on water resources, 'which is in effect but has not been enforced.'

The Patiño aquifer has been described as the 'younger brother' of the Guaraní aquifer, considered the third largest subterranean freshwater reservoir in the world, which extends 1.2 million square kilometres under Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

The Guaraní aquifer is also threatened by pollution, but is in less danger in the short-term than the Patiño aquifer, mainly due to the differences in size and in discharge and recharge volumes.

Paraguay only uses 0.5 percent of the total water in the Guaraní reservoir, said Larroza.

The Guaraní aquifer stretches under 70,000 square kilometres in eastern Paraguay. It is mainly recharged by infiltration of rainwater from the ground surface in the south-central and southeastern departments of Caaguazú and Alto Paraná.

According to Larroza, a national plan on water resources could partially curb the increasing deterioration of the Patiño aquifer and the growing pollution threat facing the Guaraní aquifer.

But the Environment Ministry official said that despite the serious threats facing water supplies and consumption in Paraguay, there are no signs of measures to address the problem in the short run.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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