W3: water treatment along the ganges

This week is where we formulate our topics for our story maps, so I’d like to start tying my future, and current, posts (at least to some small degree) to that topic. Currently I’m planning on exploring the industries leading to heavy pollution within the Ganges in India, as well as any political, social, and cultural aspects that are blockades to a comprehensive clean up plan. These aspects may include the disconnect between levels of government that prevent updated waste treatment/sewer lines, or the cultural practice of placing the dead into the river… followed by the cultural practice of bathing in the river.

The reading for Monday this week, Water, Waste, and Disease, centers around the incorporation of modern sewer and water systems during the late 19th/early 20th centuries that led to a reduction in black mortality rates, particularly urban black populations. Typhoid was the most commonly referenced disease arising from fecal waste entering drinking water. Often the connection was more obscure than directly consuming the water, particularly through ground water, contamination in cooking, or doctors transmitting the disease from infected patients. Often the deadly affects from the disease weren’t direct, but resulted in compromised immune systems that led to disease susceptibility later in life.

The Ganges, the lifeblood of India, originates in the Himalayas. As it courses through India, it picks up waste water from agriculture, industry, and human waste… which reminds me of the quote in the H2O today exhibit at the Natural History museum, “There is always someone downstream.”. While the article mentioned that the introduction of water and waste infrastructure benefited urban blacks over rural populations, even the most densely populated cities in India fail to provide adequate waste management. This results in direct dumping of practically all waste water from industry and direct dumping of human waste. The lack of plumbing systems in the major cities, in addition to wide spread poverty, results in lack of toilets or showers… turning the Ganges into those facilities for much of the population in India.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/what-it-takes-to-clean-the-ganges this is a great article by the New Yorker (who always puts out amazing essays) about the politics of cleaning the Ganges. Reading this about a year ago spurred my interest in the area, and provided some of my generic info I talk about in the above paragraph. A good read, highly recommended.