Years After Court Order, Arsenic Still Flows From Taps in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA — Beatriz Cruz straps two water containers to her bicycle. One sits in the basket, the other dangles from the handlebars. At 62, she never imagined fetching water would become part of her morning routine. Some mornings, her son makes the trip. Today it’s her turn. She’ll pedal about 800 meters (a half-mile) to the nearest public water point, hoping the water there will be safer than what comes from her taps.

What she fears is arsenic — a colorless, toxic heavy metal — which had flowed from her taps for years without her knowing. “We didn’t know the water was so terrible,” Cruz says.

As far back as the early 2000s, Nueve de Julio residents were raising the alarm about arsenic in the water. In 2014, Argentina’s Supreme Court ruled that the government needed to provide Nueve de Julio with safe drinking water whose arsenic levels met World Health Organization standards. Two years later, the provincial government and the public water company, Aguas Bonaerenses S.A., built a treatment plant in Nueve de Julio and, in compliance with a previous agreement, connected it to Ciudad Nueva, where Cruz lives.

Locals hoped the treatment plant would work. They trusted the government and used the water. Cruz cooked with it, bathed in it and drank it.

Another broken promise

Last December, tests by Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, which was mapping arsenic in the country, revealed astonishing findings.

The problem was not solved. Some locals were consuming water that contained dangerously high levels of arsenic, up to 36 times the limit set by the World Health Organization.

“We didn’t think it was going to give the values it did,” says Adriana Contarini, vice president of ConCiencia Agroecológica, a nonprofit that sent water samples to Buenos Aires Institute of Technology for testing. “It’s like having an open pit mine in the middle of town.”

Julia Crespo, who oversaw the construction of the treatment plant in 2016 and is now a city councilwoman, says that although the plant was completed and connected to Ciudad Nueva, it didn’t produce enough water to supply the population.

To make up the shortfall, she says, in Ciudad Nueva, the municipality mixed treated water with groundwater. But the groundwater contains too much arsenic, she says, and the water from the plant isn’t enough to reduce arsenic concentrations to drinkable levels.

In March, a court again ordered the government to fix the problem. It required the municipality to — among other measures — deliver safe water to vulnerable groups such as the elderly, set up water distribution centers in the neighborhood, launch a public campaign against drinking the water with arsenic, and offer free arsenic testing and treatment.

Francisco Ibañez, the municipality’s press and communications officer, says they’ve complied with the court orders, including conducting awareness campaigns and supplying emergency water. They’ve also distributed water to vulnerable households.

Ibañez says plans are underway to build a new water treatment plant, but it’s unclear when the work will start.

For residents, too much damage is already done. Promises have gone unfulfilled. The court-ordered measures are temporary, Cruz says. The government, she says, is yet to show real commitment by honoring the agreement to supply clean and safe drinking water to homes in Ciudad Nueva.

Cruz and other locals find it difficult to trust the emergency supply. They’re cautious now. Cruz spends about 28,000 Argentine pesos (US$25) on drinking and cooking water each month — on top of her bills for contaminated municipal water.

It’s an extra cost that many in Ciudad Nueva can’t afford.

A silent, toxic threat

Arsenic contaminates water in many parts of the world, with the worst-affected countries mostly in South Asia and South America. It isn’t new in Argentina, or unique to Nueve de Julio. At least 4 million people in the country live in areas where the water’s concentration of arsenic, a naturally occurring metal, exceeds permitted limits.

Jorge Daniel Stripeikis, the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology professor who led the arsenic mapping, links the arsenic in Nueve de Julio’s water to the volcanic origins of the Cordillera de los Andes, a mountain range in the western part of Argentina. Its eruption millions of years ago released arsenic, which over time has settled into the Puelche aquifer, the source of Nueve de Julio’s water.

Human activities can contribute, too. A 2017 toxicology report noted that some common herbicides in Argentina contain arsenic and are a potential source of water contamination, but Stripeikis says more studies are needed to determine how much arsenic from herbicides reaches the aquifer.

Long-term consumption of arsenic-contaminated water has been linked to skin lesions and other health issues, including cancer and hypertension.

In 2017, Cruz’s daughter developed swelling and scabs on her feet. Doctors said it was hydroarsenicism, or prolonged exposure to high levels of arsenic. They advised her to stop using the contaminated water. Cruz sold a pickup truck to buy a water filter. Over the next six months, her daughter’s arsenic levels dropped, and the skin lesions healed.

But the filter is only useful for three years. She couldn’t afford another one.

Although she is yet to see a doctor, María Patti, 65, believes the itching in her arms, which she’s experienced for a decade, and her intestinal problems are because of arsenic. “I’ve been drinking this water forever,” she says.

Patti, who is retired and lives alone in Ciudad Nueva, is among those entitled to receive home water deliveries from the municipality after the March ruling. But she has yet to receive any.

She can’t afford to buy water or carry it from the public taps, where the government supplies emergency water as it works on a more permanent solution.

“How do I carry the water? Empty [containers] are not a problem, but what about when they’re full?” she says. She runs her fingers over a skin lesion, trying not to scratch.