Arsenic Found in Rural Mekong River Wells

Wells designed to provide rural Cambodians with water free of bacterial contamination have brought arsenic into the drinking supply in areas along the Me­kong River and its tributaries, government and UN officials said this week.

Now the Ministry of Rural Development, in conjunction with the UN Children’s Fund, has be­gun to address what both say is a serious, but manageable, threat.

Detectable only through chemical tests, arsenic can cause many types of cancer and diseases of the liver, skin, blood and brain.

David Fredericks, a technical adviser at Unicef, said about 5,000 wells already have been tested. A com­prehensive Unicef report on arsenic is scheduled to be finished by the end of July, he said.

Unlike bacteriological contamination, in which people can perceive a link between ingestion and sickness, Fredericks said, ar­senic education is more difficult be­cause a person can drink the water for years without feeling any effects. Thus, some of the $375,000 Unicef provided last week for fighting arsenic contamination will go toward educating villagers about the more mysterious menace.

As a preventive measure, Mao Saray, director of rural water supply at the Ministry of Rural Development, said some wells in highly contaminated areas have been painted red “and we advise [residents] to use rainwater or water in ponds and lakes.”

Some wells dug by the government and NGOs tapped underground water supplies where or­ganic matter had used up the available oxygen, creating arsenic. Though a similar effect was ob­served in Bangladesh in the mid-1990s, it is not common, he said.

According to the Unicef statement, arsenic is only a threat to 1,400 villages, primarily in Kandal province.

Fredericks said arsenic is an “un­in­tended consequence” of fighting bacterial contamination, which remains a greater threat than arsenic, by building more wells. When the wells were dug, “people didn’t know about the arsenic,” he said.

(Ad­ditional re­porting by Van Roeun)

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