Cities and Water (and Beer and French Fries)

One can scarcely write enough about the importance of water to cities. Water is obviously critical for drinking, agriculture, sanitary sewage, washing, plus a whole host of industrial processes; yet somehow, as I've read more about the subject over the past year, I've had the nagging feeling that somehow we don't properly appreciate, or imagine, what the consequences of water mismanagement are.

Hurricane Katrina obviously provided an object lesson in the ability of water to wipe out an entire city. Two articles, one on television and one on the radio, recently brought home more pictures of devastation in a way that reading text cannot. A 60 Minutes article on Katrina last week showed the complete destruction of the neighborhoods, using an effective gimmick: they hired a cherry picker to lift the camera 60 feet into the air, and as far as you can see, the houses and neighborhoods are destroyed. This NPR article (in audio, text and images) gives a haunting sense of what it's like to be in the still-empty city.

If you find it, as I do, difficult to imagine that a city's water supplies could be jeopardized -- wouldn't we just adapt and adjust? -- then there's this news (IHT, LA Times) just in from China: the entire city of Harbin (population 4 million) is having its water supply shut-off due to potential water contamination with toxic benzene:

(International Herald Tribune) BEIJING, Nov. 24 - The Chinese government's decision to cut potentially contaminated supplies of fresh water to a major city has highlighted the threat that industrial pollution poses to public health and economic development across the nation.

Almost four million people in Harbin in northeastern China are expected to be without running water until late Saturday after a chemical plant explosion on Nov. 13 contaminated the upper reaches of the nearby Songhua River with toxic benzene.

A 50-mile stretch of the river carrying the benzene reached Harbin this morning, Shi Zhongxin, director of the city's water bureau, said on state television, according to the Associated Press. The contaminated water was expected to take 40 hours to make its way through the city.... The airport and railroad stations were reported Wednesday to be jammed as residents tried to leave.

The Financial Times reports that this may have consequences beyond the immediate shortage, including contamination of the food chain, the Telegraph (UK) details some of the health effects of benzene.

The strangest aspect of this is that some of the immediate reports on the Web were on the implications for beer and french fry production.

[Update: Water has been restored to Harbin. A few more details have emerged about why details about the toxic chemical spill emerged so late, and what steps the Chinese government took (and didn't take) to restore water service. Also, the Chinese government issued a rare public apology to the Russian government, because the river flows into China towards the town of Khabarovsk:

NYT, Nov. 27th: The Harbin disaster began with a Nov. 13 explosion at the chemical plant in Jilin, a city about 120 miles southeast. Five people were killed and 10,000 evacuated.

But it was only last week that the government announced that the Songhua had been poisoned with 100 tons of benzene. The spill is possibly the biggest ever of the chemical, a potentially cancer-causing compound used in making detergents and plastics.

State media have criticized local officials for reacting too slowly and failing to tell the public the truth in a timely manner. Environmentalists have said the government failed to prepare for such a disaster and questioned the decision to allow construction of a plant handling such dangerous materials near important water supplies.

AP summary here, New York Times article here, and BBC article here].

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