Way back in 1966, well-meaning government individuals and international health agencies installed hand-pumps in the village of Badi Madarpur in the Gogri block of Khagaria district in Bihar because they said that they were far more hygienic than the dug-wells that were then being used to access water.
The villagers were assured that the water from the hand-pumps was safer than that from dugwells which were shallow holes dug down to the water table and prone to contamination from human and animal excreta and other pollutants that cause water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, because the hand-pumps delivered water from a deeper and cleaner aquifer.
This worked very well for many years, and the residents were very happy with the water, and the building of hand-pumps flourished in the area until about twenty years later when the villagers of Badi Madarpur and other districts of Bihar noticed an increase in diseases like liver cancer, skin cancer, skin lesions, and hyperkeratosis (hard patches on the palms and soles of the feet).
Unfortunately nobody could pinpoint the cause of this until one of the residents of Ojhapatti village, whose mother and wife had both died of liver cancer, had his tubewell water tested – the results showed that the water contained extremely high levels of arsenic (a known carcinogen) – way above permissible levels as per the Bureau of Indian Standards.
This was eventually traced back to the painting of the hand-pumps by Public Health Engineering Department officials. Further testing showed extensive groundwater contamination due to arsenic and iron in water from the hand-pumps yet no trace of arsenic or iron in water samples taken from open dugwells in the same area.
According to researchers, the ultimate source of arsenic in groundwater is the arsenopyrite mineral which is lying deep underground at the bottom of the aquifer and which was harmless until more and more tubewells were put in, breaking the insoluble arsenopyrite into highly soluble iron ions and arsenic ions which started showing up in the water.
Villagers in the region made a collective decision to stop using the hand-pumps and return to using the old dugwell system, and all got together on a pre-determined day as a collective and cleared out the dugwells, removing the silt at the bottom. Their thinking is that it is better to take a chance on drinking water that may have some pollutants as opposed to drinking arsenic and iron rich water that WILL poison and kill them.
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