Issue 2 — Water and COVID-19
The pandemic has revealed the deep divisions between who has access to clean, safe water and who does not
In early March, after the world had already been thrown into the COVID-19 pandemic, Dora — a resident of rural Southern California — went, as she usually does, to buy bottled water. When she arrived at the first supermarket, a big-box store, the shelves were empty. At the second supermarket, a local one, the price of a 24-pack of bottled water had increased from $5 to $17. Dora, a low-income single mother of three and survivor of domestic violence, lives in a mobile home park in California’s Coachella Valley. The region — famous for towns such as Palm Springs and events like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — is also California’s trailer park capital. At least 10,000 people, mostly immigrants and farmworkers, live in mobile home parks across the valley and nearly all grapple with the same problem: access to clean water.
In Dora’s home, the water that runs from her tap is contaminated with high levels of naturally occurring arsenic and bacteria borne from a leaky septic system. She cannot use it for cooking or drinking, and feels unsettled bathing her youngest child without boiling it first. That’s why Dora — like most people in her community — makes a weekly trip to buy bottled water. It’s really her family’s only option.
“I can get up and go drink water from the faucet,” says Elvira Herrera, a community organizer with Lideres Campesinas, a network of female farmworkers across California. “But with or without coronavirus, these people cannot.”
Like in much of the world, the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and the start of California’s stay-at-home order was marked by frantic shopping. As people stockpiled essential goods, including bottled water, many supermarkets could not restock in time, and others — often smaller stores in rural towns — have illegally increased their prices. For Dora, water already accounts for a large chunk of her weekly budget. Now, if she can even find a case of water, she most likely cannot afford it. As a result, families across the Coachella Valley, Herrera says, have been calling friends and neighbors, asking if they can spare a gallon of water so they can make formula for their babies or cook dinner for their children.
“People are not finding water,” says Herrera, “and those are the ones who are really struggling.”
Across the United States, nearly two million people live without access to clean, running water. These people most often live in rural areas or on indigenous land, are low-income communities of color, or are those experiencing homelessness. Across the Navajo Nation, it’s estimated that 30 percent of the population — around 54,000 people — do not have access to clean, reliable sources of water. Instead, residents haul water from safe watering points or rely on thousands of unregulated sources such as livestock wells. In Los Angeles County, where nearly 60,000 people are homeless, access to clean water is contingent on access to public restrooms (of which there are few) and private businesses (which are usually locked).
As it has always been, water is a certainty for some and a luxury for others. But to live through a pandemic so closely tied to clean water yet be denied that most basic right, is to exist on the periphery of protection. And as we have already begun to see, vulnerable groups and those living without access to clean water are once again allocated the greatest burden of disease borne not only from the virus, but from environmental injustice.
The United States isn’t alone, either.
Globally, around 2.1 billion people lack access to safe, clean drinking water at home. In the Kibera slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, water access points are hard to find and amid the current stay at home recommendations, it’s even more difficult to search for them. Across Venezuela, water shortages are routine and sanitation difficulties are compounded by the high cost of supplies such as soap. In refugee camps — including Moria on the Greek island of Lesvos — there is only one tap for every 1,300 people, and more often than not, no soap available.
“We don’t have enough water to drink and cook our food,” Kibera resident Anna Nyokabi told UN-Habitat. “Where will we get water to wash our hands frequently?”
A woman walks past a water tank in Kibera, Kenya (2010). With a population of 170,000, Kibera is the largest urban slum in Africa. Most people do not have access to running water at home but instead, rely on public and communal water sources.
Photo by Alessandra Bergamin
4 Questions with Godfred Amankwaa
Toward the end of March, while researching a related story, I came across a blog post written by Godfred Amankwaa on the website for the International Water Association. Amankwaa is a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester whose research focuses on the intersection of ICTs and water, with an emphasis on the countries of the Global South. In the post, Amankwaa explored some of the issues people face in accessing clean water in developing countries, especially among the urban poor. The blog post, which delved into the intersection of access to water and COVID-19, was borne from a WhatsApp conversation with a friend of his who lives in Ghana:
“……in most parts of our world, people struggle to get regular clean drinking water let alone getting water to wash hands. In my area, we haven’t received water supply from Ghana Water for the past two days. Some people may be privileged to afford alternative water, but what about those who can’t? It is really interesting times ahead…….”
For Defender, I spoke with Amankwaa about some of the challenges people in developing countries are facing as they tackle COVID-19 without clean and consistent water supplies.
[The interview has been edited for length and clarity]
Why did you write the original blog post?
As a water researcher, I instantly became concerned about how water access problems in developing countries like Ghana may worsen the spread of COVID-19. As you know, handwashing cannot happen without water, one of the basic weapons we have to shield ourselves from COVID-19. Yet, considering the numerous water access challenges in poor urban spaces in the developing world, I became worried for people living in slum-like and informal communities who are often hit the hardest by water insecurity.
What are some of the main issues that the urban poor in developing countries face when it comes to water access?
For most low-income and off-grid communities who are supplied by informal water market operators such as tanker services, there are continuous reported cases of poor water quality. To this end, most households resort to bottled water for drinking purposes and use water supplied by tanks for bathing and washing.
For those in developing countries who are connected to the water grid, poor water treatment and poor-quality pipe connections are some of the daily issues people face in accessing clean, safe water. These sources of water may also be contaminated and unsafe due to irregular and unkempt reservoirs operated by those who supply water to communities, and to the poor proximity of taps to public spaces of convenience, such as toilets.
Cost issues are also a concern; many people in the developing world are not able to afford water. This vicious cycle is even worse for those who live in slum-like and low-income urban communities, who pay five times more for water than those connected to the utility grid.
The bottom line is communities in developing countries, especially those in low-income areas, go through daily struggles to access water. In the face of COVID-19, these issues and struggles become even worse.
How could communal water points impact a community’s ability to practice social distancing?
Due to the general unavailability of household water and reliance on shared water sources, residents often gather in large crowds to collect water at central water points, such as boreholes, pipes, and other communal sources. This is especially common among women who often wake up early or go out late at night to wait in long lines to collect water. Social distancing is seen as a privilege for the rich who may have regular water supplies at their homes. For the urban poor who need to wait in long queues to fetch water, this daily struggle creates persistent interactions with people from different households.
WASH — water, sanitation, and hygiene — programs are a big part of international aid work, yet as you write in your blog post, COVID-19 has revealed the lack of preparedness and resilience of these programs. Could you explain that connection a bit more?
Currently, communities are not in the position to practice the protective measures (handwashing) against COVID-19 due to continuous water access problems. COVID-19, then, exposes how state governments have not invested much in handwashing facilities across communities. This reminds us that WASH interventions in most countries have not been prioritized, let alone able to serve as a response to emergency situations.
Local governments over the years have failed to appropriately implement and prioritize the WASH needs in their countries. Some may say this is due to the huge financial burden associated with such interventions, but the truth is most local governments have not demonstrated enough political commitment over the years. In the aid sector, more often than not, the performance and accountability of the projects they finance are low priorities, and largely at par with the local needs of receiving countries.
In Pictures
Celerina Chavez sits in her kitchen in Arvin, California, a small town in the Central Valley about four hours north of Los Angeles. Like many people that live in the agricultural towns that criss-cross the region, the water that flows from her faucet is unsafe for cooking and drinking. Her community is one of more than ninety across California whose water is contaminated with 123-Trichloropropane, or 123-TCP. The chemical originated as a by-product of two soil fumigants, D-D made by Shell Oil and Telone from Dow Chemical. These products were used heavily in agriculture from the 1940s until they were discontinued forty years later. During that time, however, the chemicals leached into the groundwater, contaminating the wells that most people in the valley rely upon.
“We’re in the United States and it isn’t just any country,” Chavez says. “Why is the water so bad, why is it so contaminated?”
In 2017, Briana Flin — a multimedia journalist — and I, filmed and produced a short documentary about ongoing water struggles in rural California’s and the people trying to hold corporations, such as Shell, accountable. While these issues predate the pandemic, communities from Arvin to the mobile home parks scattered across the Coachella Valley, are now dealing with not only COVID-19 but a legacy of neglect.
The full documentary, Water is Life, was published in Boom California. You can watch it here.
Photo by Alessandra Bergamin
Last month, I had planned for the April issue of Defender to focus on climate action as it relates to Earth Day. Rules, however, including those we create for ourselves, are meant to be broken, and I decided it was best to shift my attention to the current crisis. Even as we live through this pandemic, the climate emergency has not subsided. So, depending on how we fare over the next month, Defender may make a second attempt to focus on climate action. Until then, stay home and stay safe.
Thank you for reading!