Chapter 4: Water GLOBAL GENDER AND ENVIRONMENT OUTLOOK Energy Chapter 2


system to the nearby heavily-polluted Flint River. Flint is an industrial city with an official poverty rate of over 40%, a majority African-American population and a female- headed household rate of almost 30% (US Census 2015; State of Michigan 2015). Residents (especially mothers) complained about poor water quality almost immediately following the switchover, but the authorities repeatedly dismissed their concerns and issued strong denials that there was a problem. In 2015 independent investigations undertaken by a local paediatrician and an outside water engineering analyst provided scientific evidence to support residents’ complaints: the water supply was dangerously contaminated with lead, bacteria and industrial pollutants (Bellinger 2016; Carasik 2016; Hanna-Attisha et al. 2015). Childhood lead poisoning can have life-long cognitive and developmental consequences. The magnitude of the Flint crisis brought national attention to its intersecting gender, class, and race dimensions.


Pesticides are commonly found in surface and groundwater, in both public systems and private sources and in rich and poor countries. Few of the world’s municipal or local water management bodies have the capacity to detect (let alone regulate) pesticide residues in water supplies. According to a 2015 global meta- analysis (Stehle and Schulz 2015), agricultural insecticide concentrations exceeded regulatory thresholds in 52% of sediment and water samples taken at more than 2500 sites in 73 countries. The authors conclude that pesticide contamination of surface water threatens the biological integrity of global water resources and that the ubiquity of the contamination calls into question the effectiveness of existing regulation of these chemicals. Pesticide residues even at low concentrations (such as residues of pesticides responsible for hormone-related cancers such as breast cancer) are health hazards (Mnif et al. 2011; Watts 2007). Not even advanced water treatment systems can remove low concentrations of these contaminants, and few if any regulatory agencies have legislation that adequately protects citizens against pesticide residues in water supplies (Bienkowski 2013; Stackelberg et al. 2007; Daughton 2004; Stackelberg et al. 2004). For a variety of reasons, it can be difficult for regulatory agencies to respond adequately to newly introduced industrial processes such as mining and fracking (Box 2.2.3).


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Policies are in place in many locations to ensure water quality in cases of industrial or mining accidents, but their application can be inadequate in developed and developing countries. In January 2014 chemical


Residents of Flint, United States, protest during a government hearing into the water crisis in that city, 2016. Photo credit: © Jake May | MLive.com


contamination of the Elk River in West Virginia (United States) disrupted public water supply to approximately 300,000 homes, closed schools and businesses, and caused hundreds of people to seek medical care for symptoms they associated with water exposure (Goldenberg 2014). This was the largest outbreak of acute illness related to chemical contamination of water in the United States up to then. The response of regulatory agencies (and of the company responsible for the toxic release) was widely interpreted as “too little and too late”. The industrial site that was the source of the chemical spill had not been inspected by environmental regulators since 1991 and was legally exempt from most environmental inspections, which apply to chemical production facilities but not to “storage sites”; the company was required to maintain a groundwater protection plan in the event of a spill, but none was in evidence; and the toxicity of the contaminant, last tested in 1990, was largely unknown (Bumgardner 2014). A gendered analysis of the accident, response and possible long-term health effects remains to be carried out. Early analysis suggests gender differences in responses to the disaster: male respondents reported more “unapproved” household water use than females (30% compared with 19%) in the period when a no-use order from officials was in effect; psychological distress during and after the


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