SPEAKER -WATER: AN ENDANGERED NECESSITY?
January 23, 2001 - Baltimore, Maryland
CHARLES CLEMENTS, MD, MPH
Director, Border WaterWorks (see links below)
Past President, Physicians for Human Rights Dotting the border of Mexico are 1500 communities in Texas and New Mexico that have been labeled colonias, the Mexican word for neighborhood, because they were without running water or sewer. Though some of these unincorporated subdivisions are as old as 150 years, many of them date from the 1950’s when a low-income housing shortage forced migrant workers out of border cities. A further boom in the maquiladora industry in the 1970’s and 1980’s resulted in growth on both sides of the border. That explosion of colonia growth continued in the 1990s until border activists forced Congress to promise federal aid to clean-up the underlying infrastructure problems in return for state legislation that tightened zoning regulations. Tracking of waterborne diseases such as Hepatitis A in colonias has been nearly impossible for health departments for several reasons. Since most colonia residents are in the U.S. illegally, they often seek health care in Mexico for reasons of cost, convenience, and cultural acceptance. Since there are no street addresses in the colonias, patients are only located through P.O. Boxes, but being fearful of authority these patients don’t often respond to follow-up. One of the only epidemiological studies in any colonia used serology to confirm an 80% incidence of Hepatitis A by age 32. Water from shallow ground wells contaminated by cesspools and faulty septic tanks was the probable cause. There are a number of federal and state agencies as well as non-governmental organizations working to resolve these infrastructure problems. Federally funded and state supervised construction projects have often resulted in delays of five to seven years. By using volunteer labor to assist its experienced construction foremen, Border WaterWorks uses a method called 'community assisted construction' to complete projects in months instead of years. Such projects are normally constructed for 50% of retail costs and savings have on occasion exceeded 75% of the contractor-authorized price. Such savings are critical to these projects which require a loan component carried by colonia residents whose income ranges from $4,000 to $16,000/year. Border WaterWorks has focused its efforts in several hundred colonias, which were excluded from EPA funding. RELATED LINKS Article on Border WaterWorks from BorderLines, 25
(Vol. 4, No. 6, July 1996) Pew Charitable Trusts "Returning Results" Article: Getting Pipes into the Ground, by Laura M. Line and Susan K. Urahn, July 2000 |
