India - Water Contamination - Schoolkids on Guwahati fringes drink acidic water

[Valliappan Manickam]

Article Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Guwahati/Schoolkids-on-Guwa...

GUWAHATI: In an alarming find, the state public health and engineering department (PHED) and an NGO said schoolchildren in the tribal belt along the outskirts of the city have been consuming water, which is highly acidic in nature and unfit for drinking. The source of the water for these children is a well.

A little over five per cent of the samples were found to contain iron above the permissible limit of 0.3 mg/l. The survey pointed out that long time consumption of water with a high concentration of iron could lead to liver diseases. The test was conducted to ascertain the availability of pure drinking water to the students in the Rani-Deepor Beel-Gorchuk belt bordering Meghalaya by NGO Eco Concept in collaboration with PHED.

Apart from the high pH value, the survey also found the levels of hardness, turbidity, residual chlorine, iron and bacteria high in the water. Of the 1,052 water samples tested across 129 villages, 202 or 19.20% were found to have pH above 7 while 33 samples or 3.13% had pH above 8.5 limits, which is considered unsuitable for drinking. "The pH value is a measure of the intensity of alkali or acid in water. A high value of pH hastens scale formation in water-heating apparatus and reduces the germicidal potential of chlorine. A pH level below 6.5 leads to corrosion in pipes thereby releasing toxic metals," the report said. Only 549 samples or 52.18% of the total samples were found to have pH levels within permissible limits of 6.5 to 8.5 pH. Absolutely pure water has a pH value of 7.0.