Sinking a tube-well by using a well-drilling derrick (Photo source: © James Pender/CBSDP) “The biggest mass poisoning of a population in history”; how’s that for an attention-grabbing headline?
Is it from some sensationalist tabloid? No, that is how the World Health Organisation describes the total of between 40 million and 75 million people in Bangladesh and north-eastern India who are exposed to contaminated well water, leading to ulcers, gangrene and cancer, and, in thousands of cases, death.
Arsenic poisoning in groundwater could lead to 20,000 deaths a year, according to one UN Development Report.
The Church of Bangladesh, a CMS partner, is doing its bit to mitigate the suffering through its Social Development Programme.
Why don’t we know more about it? Turn back the clock to the 1970s. In order to provide clean drinking water, UNICEF, the Government of Bangladesh and various agencies sank hundreds of thousands of pump tube-wells.
Unfortunately, it slowly transpired that many of these tube-wells were too shallow and the water was being poisoned with arsenic that is naturally found in much of the soil in Bangladesh. The tragedy only came to light as villagers began to show signs of arsenic poisoning, which often led, eventually, to their deaths.
We are constantly assailed by tragedies on the news about war, famine, ethnic strife, HIV/AIDS, natural disasters, Sudan, Iraq – situations requiring UN mandates and international solutions and big budgets.
So why haven’t we heard more about arsenic poisoning in wells in Bangladesh?
Despite being such a vast problem, the solution is relatively straightforward.
The answer is to dig modified wells to draw water from safe ground levels. Of course, that requires money – and a lot of money – but this is a problem that is eminently solvable and for a fraction of the cost of a war or bank bail-out.
What’s being done? 
A CBSDP water-project sticker(Photo: © CBSDP/CMS)The Church of Bangladesh Social Development Programme (CBSDP) runs an arsenic mitigation project, which tests wells for signs of poisoning.
It also provides vitamin therapy to those diagnosed with arsenicosis. The treatment consists of a three-month course of vitamins A, C and E, which help prevent the illness developing further and repair damaged cells.
CBSDP also modifies existing wells to tap drinking water from above the arsenic-contaminated ground layer.
It raises awareness of the health issues too.
CMS mission partner James Pender is researching the full extent of the problem and is helping to find and implement solutions.
Together with his colleagues at CBSDP, he is literally ‘changing lives’ by ensuring that local communities are given access to life-giving water.
In its Annual Report, the CBSDP acknowledges that “arsenic contamination of ground water in many parts of Bangladesh has caused enormous health hazards and social problems because of the large number of people severely affected by the poison –– running into thousands in Meherpur”, one of the areas in which CBSDP and James Pender work.
CBSDP notes, however, that “it appears that interest in this issue is falling, both in government and among NGOs”. Nonetheless, CBSDP is continuing its work with those who are directly affected and working with other organisations to understand the situation better.
Clean, safe water(Photo: © CBSDP/CMS)CMS staffer Phil Evans remembers, “When I visited Bangladesh with my colleague, Regional Manager Adrian Watkins, I was immensely challenged by the CBSDP’s commitment to demonstrate God’s love for all. As an outreach linked to a minority religion, it might have been tempting to focus on the Christian community, but the Church strives to serve all the poor across Bangladesh.
“Its vision is derived from John 10.10: “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”
”It seems crazy that a country inundated with water should have such a water crisis.” Quite!
CMS mission partner James Pender works as an Adviser on Development and Natural Resource with the Church of Bangladesh's Social Development Programme.