In Bolivia, what gets flushed down also comes back up—in the form of veggies. Care to guess what irrigates the country’s green, leafy fields? Toilet water. Yuck.
Bolivia is one of South America’s poorest countries. There’s no waste water treatment plant in the capital of La Paz or in any other city. At least one environmental report describes Bolivia’s water as “very bad quality.”
Water is important in the Bible. Scripture compares a man who yields to the wicked “like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain.” (Proverbs 25:26) By contrast, the mouth of the righteous is a “well of life” (Proverbs 10:11) because it refreshes the weary.
Imagine using foul water! In Bolivia, polluted waters flow from households and factories in La Paz straight to the city’s southern farming hub. The Environment and Water Ministry says it hopes to change this with the construction of the city’s first water treatment plant.
But for now, most produce that arrives each morning in La Paz markets is contaminated. An audit shows that “12.5 percent of agricultural products were acceptable; 25 percent were mildly acceptable; and 62.5 percent were rejectable.” Some carry parasites, including E. coli. Symptoms of E. coli infection include diarrhea, severe stomach cramps, and vomiting.
Contamination is also a problem in rivers in other Bolivian cities such as Cochabamba and Santa Cruz.
Like many farmers in Bolivia, Richard Mamani uses water from untreated sewage to tend the vegetables that are his livelihood. He has safe drinking water but says it’s too expensive to use on his fields. He knows the risks of using the water, which is sometimes foamy with impurities.
He says, “I know it’s dangerous, even for our health, but we have to tend to our fields or else we’ll starve.”
(Sixty-nine-year-old Celia smiles after working in her vegetable fields, which she irrigates with river water that carries sewage, in Valencia, Bolivia. AP Photo)
