Global Water Crisis and Reflections
from our Christian perspective

By Sean McDonagh SSC

The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 55/196 has declared 2003 as the International Year of Fresh Water. It is easy to understand why the UN is so concerned about fresh water. At this moment in history, in January 2003, it is clear to any researcher that the human community is facing a global water crisis. The cold statistics are as follows. 1.2 billion people, about one third of the world's population, have no access to clean water. 2.5 billion have no sanitation and if we continue with a business - as - usual attitude two-thirds of the world will not have sufficient water in 30 years time. These figures are taken from the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP's) report Global Environmental Outlook 3. The report is based on the work of over 1,000 scientists and was prepared for the Summit on Sustainable Development which met in August this year in Johannesburg. (1)

Human activity is polluting water in rivers, aquifers, lakes and the oceans around the world. The situation is extremely serious and poised to get worse unless concerted action is taken at local, national and global levels.

Fresh Water
The Global Environmental Outlook tells us that only 2.5 per cent of the waters of the world are fresh water and most of that water is found in ice and snow in Antarctica, Greenland and the Arctic.

World wide the demand for water is doubling every 21 years. The major factors that account for the increased use of water are population growth, industrialization and irrigation agriculture. To date, in order to meet the human demand for water over 60 percent of the world's largest 227 rivers have been dammed.

Water Distribution Inequitable
Only one per cent of the fresh water of the world is available for human use in either agriculture, industry or for domestic purposes. But as we know this water is distributed in an inequitable way. In many First World countries water is readily available from taps and some wealthy individuals have luxury swimming pools. In Mindanao where I worked as a Columban missionary many people, usually women and children, had to walk for miles to get their daily supply of water. Even then they had to use it sparingly.

The average person in most First World countries uses 142 litres of drinking quality water each day. Of this amount 50 per cent is flushed down the toilet. Less than 10 percent is used for drinking or cooking. The most wasteful aspect of our present toilet system is that the water in the cistern has been treated to drinking water standards. This water, which has undergone expensive chemical treatment and has been pumped for miles from the reservoir, is polluted with a single flush. Then the negative cycle begins as this polluted water is pumped to sewage treatment plants. Many of these in Ireland are inadequate and therefore pollute our rivers.

The cost of water varies a lot. Here in Ireland drinking water is free for the ordinary citizen who gets water from a municipal supply. If you live in Tanzania you will pay 5.7 percent of your daily wages on water. In the United States it is 0.006 percent of your wages on water . (2)

Water and Health
Unfortunately water is not always potable. Polluted water is one of the main causes of illness in poor countries. As a result two million people, mainly in Africa, die needlessly each year.(3) This is the equivalent of 10 jumbo jets crashing each day. One of the saddest statistics of all is that about 6,000 children die each day from water-borne diseases like gastro-enteritis. This figure is almost twice the number of people killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon which led to massive retaliation in Afghanistan and huge resources being poured into the war on terror. Unfortunately, there is no crusade to provide clean water for everyone on the planet despite the high death toll across much of the Third World.

Problems with Groundwater
Until very recently humans relied mainly on streams, rivers and lakes for their water needs. According to Global Environment Outlook two billion people now depend on groundwater for their water needs. In recent decades groundwater has been depleted and polluted on an unprecedented scale. The demands on groundwater from agriculture have also increased in California and the Southern Great Plains of the United States. In India, "the number of tubewells used to draw groundwater have surged from 3,000 in 1960 to 6 million in 1990". (4) In most continents aquifers are being drawn down much faster than they are being refilled. Because groundwater takes so long to recycle, polluting it is much more serious than polluting rivers. Today we are doing that at an alarming rate forgetting that the average recycling period for groundwater is 1,400 years as opposed to only 20 days for river water. (5) In almost every part of the world humans have polluted groundwater with a variety of chemicals from industry and agriculture. Organochlorines like DDT are still contaminating groundwater in the US thirty years after the pesticide has been banned. Organic waste from sewage and animal waste is also a huge problem. It is often forgotten that in a country like the US, for example, farm animals produce 130 times more waste than the entire human population. Much of this waste ends up in streams and rivers and some seeps into the groundwater. The level of nitrates in groundwater has also increased in recent years. (6)

The Chemical Experiment
Unfortunately the full consequences of today's chemical-dependent and waste-producing economies may not become apparent for another generation.(7) In December 1999, Dr. John Peterson of the W.Alton Jones Foundation in the United States told a conference of scientists in Japan that, "a hundred or more novel chemicals are swilling around in our bloodstream, chemicals which, before this century, were not found in human beings. It makes all of us, as well as our children and grandchildren, a walking experiment - one with completely unknown results". (8)

Some of these chemicals disrupt the endocrine system and therefore effect all aspects of human development from the embryo onwards. Because the chemical and pharmaceutical industries are so central to modern economies and so powerful, governments have been slow to investigate, regulate and ban these substances. Scientists and environmental non-government organisation (NGOs) are worried about the long-term consequence of these chemicals and have demanded that substances that are suspected of acting as endocrine blockers and that accumulate in the human tissue should be banned.

Water and World Peace
Today the water situation in the Middle East and North Africa is precarious. North Eastern China, Western and Southern India, Pakistan, much of South America and countries in Central America like Mexico face water scarcity. Somewhere in the region of 260 rivers flow through two countries or more. Only a handful of these countries have signed treaties regulating their respective access to the water (9). As a result competition between adjacent countries for access to water resources is causing friction which could lead to outright hostilities in the future. Until very recently Egypt, Ethiopia and other countries that share the Nile's waters seem to be on a collision course over access to a fair share of the water. Under the auspices of the United Nations 10 countries have recently reached agreement on equitable access to the Nile's waters. (10)

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is one of the running sores of our time. We know it has the potential to destabilise both the Middle East and the World. We seldom hear of what might be called the water dimension of the conflict. Out of a potential annual flow of 1,250 million cubic metres (MCM) of water from the Jordan river 565 are utilised by Israel. The pumps which Palestinians used to draw water from the Jordan were destroyed by the Israelis after the 1967 war. There is also inequity and controversy over access to groundwater. The Western Aquifer System is a good example of this inequality. It has a safe annual yield of 362 MCM. Israelis now use 340 MCM, leaving a meagre 22 MCM to the Palestinian population.(11)

But the potential for water wars is not confined to the Israel and Palestine. In March 2002 there was a stand-off between Malaysia and Singapore over the threat by Malaysia to cut water supplies to the island nation of Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father, warned that any threat by Malaysia to cut water supplies to Singapore even though its own citizens are experiencing a severe drought, could lead to "serious consequences" (12) It is no wonder that Ismail Serageldin, The World Bank's vice president for environmentally sustainable development, is on record as stating that many of the wars of the last century ( 20th ) were about oil, but wars of this century (21st ) will be about water.

Water in Ireland
Here in Ireland we are blessed with a plentiful supply of rain. While the level of water pollution in Ireland has not reached that of Eastern Europe there is no room for complacency. An editorial in The Irish Times (March 14, 2000) stated that, "Ireland's rivers have gone, in little more than a generation from being almost pristine pure and clear to overblown imitations of open sewers and chemical drains". The editorial was in response to a preliminary report published by the 'Three Rivers Project' which examined the water quality of the Liffey, the Boyne and the Suir.

It is now accepted even by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the quality of water in many Irish rivers and lakes has deteriorated in recent decades.(13) Fish kills, though less common than they used to be mainly because of the huge investment that farmers have put into avoiding pollution, unfortunately still happen each summer. This is normally due to the increased levels of phosphorus entering our rivers from a variety of sources. These include agricultural sources, sewage treatment plants, households, septic tanks and factories. The subsequent algal bloom depletes the supply of oxygen and causes the fish and other aquatic life to die.

According to the EPA's Water Quality in Ireland Report 1990-2000 over 30 percent of Irish rivers are polluted. This adds up to 4,006 kilometres of river channels countrywide. 17 percent are moderately polluted. 12.4 percent are slightly polluted and 0.8 percent are seriously polluted. (14)

The Three Rivers Project: Boyne, Suir and Liffey
The final report on the Three Rivers Project came up with similar findings in November 2002. The report established that agriculture accounted for almost 60 per cent of the phosphate pollution. Almost 20 per cent was caused by urban sewage and quite an amount from septic tanks. Interestingly from a Tipperary perspective, while the quality of water in both the Boyne and Liffey had improved, the Suir has continued to deteriorate with almost 50 per cent slightly or moderately polluted. Everyone in the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emily ought to be concerned about the deteriorating quality of the Suir water since the river and its tributaries flow right through the Archdiocese.

The report called for a review of all existing discharge licences affecting the Suir catchment from South Laois to Waterford. It wants waste water treatment plants to be upgraded in towns and villages. It challenges the farming community to adopt best farm management practices and suggests that each farm should to be certified annually by an accredited planner. But farmers need supports to be able to achieve these goals. Anyone with any knowledge of the farming community will realize that these are heavy demands and at a time when income from agriculture is falling. Recent statistics indicate that farm incomes will be down 8.5 percent this year. Therefore farmers will need incentives and well targeted funding in order to be able to improve environmental controls on their farms.

Many Irish lakes are polluted. In April 2002 two environmental groups Save Our Lough Derg (SOLD) and Save Our Lough Rea (SOLR) claimed that sewage from "one-off" houses and inadequate municipal sewage treatment plants represents the biggest threat to water quality in the Shannon. A report in July 2001 found that 35 percent of the waterway of the Shannon system was significantly polluted, though this was down by 10 percent on a previous report ( ). This is good news but we need to really clean up our longest river - the Shannon. This majestic river also touches the Archdiocese.

The EPA Water Quality Report is particularly worried about the quality of Irish groundwater. It found that 34 percent of the groundwater samples tested positive for faecal coliforms (e-coli) and animal and human sewage. The chief executive of the Food Safety Authority, Dr. Patrick Wall warned that Ireland faced a potential fatal outbreak of e-coli 0157. 11 people died in Canada after drinking water contaminated with e-coli 0157 (16). A report on the quality of Private Group Water Schemes found that high levels of total coliforms and faecal coliforms in wells in both North and South Tipperary. (17) Even Holy Wells are being polluted. In November 2002 coliform bacteria were found in a holy well in Kilkenny town which is also a popular source of drinking water. (18)

Given our geographical location on the edge of the Atlantic ocean and our frequent rain it is almost unbelievable that the Irish government is in breach of the EU Water Directive. In 1998 a number of environmental organisations in Ireland complained to the European Commission that the Irish government was not living up to its obligations under the EU Water Directive. In April 2002 The Advocate General of the EU rejected the defence put forward by the Irish government for not ensuring that Irish drinking water was not up to EU standards. The Advocate General, Mr. M.A. Tizzano recognised that some progress had been made in Ireland but his judgement concluded that, "although appreciable, these initiatives are not capable of sustaining the obligations … nor can they be used in justification for its infringement". He sustained three complaints. First, Ireland had not ensured compliance with the directive in relation to the public water mains network and certain parts of that network in particular. Second, Ireland had not ensured compliance concerning faecal coliforms in relation to certain group water schemes. Third, Ireland had no binding national legislation which it could apply to group water schemes. (19)

The judgement was finally handed down in November 2002. The European Court of Justice ruling against Ireland under the EU Drinking Water Directive. In relation to the contamination of group water schemes in rural areas of the country the court found that "the argument that Ireland had taken steps to improve the quality of its water intended for human consumption cannot be accepted. The court stated that each one of the 145,000 houses in group water schemes all over the country must benefit from the Directive. In relation to the contamination of group water schemes in rural areas of the country the court found that "the argument that Ireland had taken steps to improve the quality of its water intended for human consumption cannot be accepted".

Water Sustains our Emotional and Spiritual Lives
Water sustains not just our physical life but our spiritual and emotional life as well. Think of Handel's Water Music. One of the poems we learned in school was Yeat's The Lake Isle of Innisfree

"I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core."

Water in the Christian Churches
Water has a central role in the teaching and liturgies of many religions. In the Christian Churches the different symbolic functions of water are highlighted in the blessing of the baptismal water in the Catholic Rite of Baptism. At the very beginning of creation, "your Spirit breathed on the waters, making them the wellspring of all holiness. The waters of the great flood you made a sign of the waters of Baptism, that make an end of sin and a new beginning of goodness". Water is also a sign of liberation, "through the waters of the Red Sea you led Israel out of slavery, to be an image of God's holy people, set free from sin by baptism".

One of the most powerful visions in the Hebrew Scriptures is found in Ezekiel 47:1-12. It is a vision of fruitfulness, abundance, extolling the healing and life-giving qualities of clean water. Sadly the prophet did not understand the role of marshes and mudflats in marine ecosystems. Given that he lived over 2,500 years ago he can be forgiven. Today we know that without these ecosystems there would not be such an abundance of marine life!

The prophet sees water pouring out from beneath the Temple. Initially it reached his ankles, then his knees and waist welling up into a river that could not be crossed. The river, "flowed into the sea and made its waters wholesome. Wherever the river flows, all living creatures teeming in it will live. Fish will be very plentiful, for wherever the water goes it brings health… There will be fishermen on its banks. Fishing nets will be spread from En-gedi to Eneglaim. The fish will be as varied and as plentiful as the fish of the Great Sea (Mediterranean). The marshes and lagoons, however, will not become wholesome, but will remain salt. Along the river, on either bank, will grow every kind of fruit tree with leaves that never wither and fruits that never fail; they will bear new fruit every month, because this water comes from the sanctuary. And their fruit will be good to eat and the leaves medicinal" (verses 9-12).

Christ's own baptism in the Jordan is linked to his mission to bring about justice and peace for all. "In the waters of the Jordan your Son was baptised by John and anointed by the Spirit." Fr. Killian McDonnell described the cosmic dimension of the baptism of Jesus. He recalls the picture of Gregory Nazianzus who has Jesus, "carrying the cosmos with him as he ascends out of the water of the Jordan". He goes on to argue that "the cosmic dimensions of the baptism of Jesus are part of antiquity's broader conviction, rooted in incarnation and resurrection, that the material universe, as the home of a redeemed humanity, is destined for transfiguration through the power of the Spirit manifested in the risen body of Christ". (20)

Based on our belief in baptism McDonnell argues that, "the ecological movement should have as its goal not only the preservation and restoration of the natural environment because we live and die here. Creation should be worthy of its vocation to praise. Praise him, sun and moon. Praise the Lord mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds (Ps 148). The cosmos lives in hope. The Universe is destined for God and for transformation. (21)

Water was important in Jesus' teaching mission. The incident with the Samaritan woman at the well in St. John's gospel afforded Jesus the opportunity to present his life-giving message for all people. "Whoever drinks this water will thirst again; but anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again. The water I shall give will turn into a spring inside him/her, welling up to eternal life" (Jn 4: 14).

Baptising with water was to be a sign of entry into His community. After his resurrection he told his disciples: go out and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In a world where water is being polluted and abused one could argue that the symbolic connection between living water and the power of the Holy Spirit to incorporate those who are baptised into the Body of Christ is being compromised in a significant way.

Water is important even at the end of time. The vision of Ezekiel is recalled with the belief that when reconciliation and restoration take place in Christ in the New Jerusalem, living, clear and clean water will be abundant and sweet. "Then the angel showed me the river of life, rising from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and flowing crystal-clear down the middle of the city street" ( Rev. 22:1).

1. Global Environment Outlook 3, 2002, Earthscan Publications Ltd, 120 Pentonville Road, London N1 9JN www.earthscan.co.uk

2. Earth, The Guardian, August 7, 2002, page 7.

3. Paul Brown, "Failure to manage water kills two million a yearr -UN", The Guardian, April 11, 2002.

4. Ibid. page 11.

5. Payal Sampat, "Groundwater Shock", WorldWatch magazine, January/February 2000, page10..

6. Ibid page 14-15. 7. ibid page 20.

8. Paul Brown, "Contamination -gender-bender chemicals are now inside all of us", The Guardian, January 12, 2000, Supplement page 4.

9. Dr. William Reville, "Water, water everywhere, but not for everyone", The Irish Times, May 15, 2000, page 9.

10. Paul Brown, "Failure to manage water kills two million a year-UN", The Guardian, April 11, 2002.

11. Isaac. Jad, "Water Conflict in the Holy Land", Thinking Mission, published by the United

12. John Burton, "Malaysia puts the screw on Singapore over water", Financial Times, March 7, 2002, page 8.

13. Donal Hickey, The Irish Examiner, August 28, 2000, page 15.

14. Treacy Hogan, "One-third of rivers poisoned, reveals new water survey", Irish Independent. December 29, 2001, page 9.

15. Declan Fahey, "Group warns on sewage threat to Shannon", The Irish Times, April 10, 2002, page 2.

16. "Water Ruling welcomed", The Irish Times, November 15, 2002, page 2.

17. National Rural Water Monitoring Committee, Report on Survey of Source Water Quality in Private Group Water Schemes, November 2000 - 2001, Executive Summary, July 2002, By M.J. O'Connell & Co, page 18, 19.

18. Bacteria found in Kilkenny holy well, The Irish Times, November 7th, 2002, page 2.

19. Tim O'Brien, "EU advocate rejects Irish defence in water case", The Irish Times, April 27, 2002.

20. Killian, McDonnell, 1996, The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, page 243.

21. Ibid. page 244.

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