- The Observer,
- Sunday September 30, 2001
Up to 77 million people in the country could be at risk from arsenic-contaminated water amid accusations that alleged negligence by the BGS triggered an environmental catastrophe.
The London-based firm Leigh Day, which is representing hundreds of Bangladeshi villagers, claims that, if experts from the BGS had tested for arsenic when they visited Bangladesh in 1992, thousands of people could have been saved from serious illnesses.
Three years before the BGS study of water quality in Bangladesh, the environmental organisation published findings on 'routine' tests for arsenic in ground-water in the UK.
From the Moray Basin in Scotland to West Devon, underground water sources throughout Britain were tested for arsenic. The BGS team did not find UK arsenic levels significantly in excess of European limits, but they noted in their 1989 report that arsenic in groundwater was considered 'toxic or undesirable in excessive amounts'.
Professor John McArthur, a leading geoscientist from University College London, said that following the UK tests the BGS should have tested for arsenic in Bangladesh. 'They did a country-wide test in the UK, they included arsenic in that country-wide test - so why they didn't do it in Bangladesh is a mystery.'
Martyn Day of Leigh Day believes the legal action could set a precedent for both the Third World and geological scientists. 'I think it's absolutely right that when a group like the BGS come out to a developing country like Bangladesh they are forced to apply exactly the same standards they would apply if they were testing water in Salisbury, or London, or any where else in Britain. The whole of the aid world, the whole of the geological world, will be watching this case.'
He added: 'If the BGS had tested for arsenic in 1992, somebody would have pressed the panic button, and this would have brought in all the mitigation projects. All the evidence we have suggests that many people would not have gone down with arsenic-related illnesses.'
The origins of the current water-contamination crisis in Bangladesh stretch back to the late Seventies and Eighties when more than four million tube wells were sunk to dissuade people from using polluted surface water that was causing widespread disease. At the forefront of the project were leading aid agencies, including the UN Children's Fund (Unicef).
Professor Mahmuder Rahman from the Dhaka Community Hospital is among those who now believe that, in addition to the BGS, Unicef must take responsibility for the potential disaster. He said there was growing anger in the country at the part played by Western experts and aid agencies in the crisis.
'It was a mistake that they didn't look for arsenic when they prescribed underground water. Somebody has to take responsibility, and compensate these people. This is a calamity of an unprecedented nature.'
Critics of the BGS survey say the guidelines over testing water supplies were clearly standardised by the World Health Organisation. From 1968 onwards a number of scientific papers reported on concerns about arsenic in groundwater in Taiwan, Hungary, the US, and West Bengal in India. In 1984 the World Health Organisation set down guidelines for arsenic content in drinking water.
Despite this, Unicef said they did not test for arsenic in the Seventies and Eighties because they did not expect to find it in the water. Bangladesh Unicef representative Shahida Azfar said they tested only for known contaminants. 'You don't test for something you don't expect to find. We are very sorry at what has happened.'
As lawyers launch legal action against the BGS, it has also been alleged that the BGS failed to test for arsenic when they studied ground-water in Vietnam in 1996. Earlier this year, Swiss and Vietnamese scientists reported on a health threat from arsenic in and around Hanoi.
The BGS refused to comment last week on the case but said in a brief statement the organisation 'had nothing to hide' and always worked to the highest professional standards in Bangladesh, Vietnam and elsewhere.
