Human Right to Water and Sanitation

Monday, October 10, 2011 at 04:14PM

Last week, the UNC Water Institute convened a terrific international conference, Water and Health 2011.  I was on the agenda to describe the U.S. site visit last winter of the United Nations Independent Expert on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, Catarina de Albuquerque.  As a member of the planning committee for the site visit, I introduced Catarina to colleagues from the Black Belt in Alabama and from Appalachia, who described to her the inequities and discimination in provision of water and wastewater services in the U.S.  We also arranged for a site visit to Falmouth on Cape Cod, where residents are facing proposals for $60-80,000 per home conventional sewer systems to deal (hypothetically) with nitrogen in groundwater and estuaries.  Citizens have been advocating for much more affordable and quicker solutions, such as composting toilets, permeable barriers, oyster uptake, inlet widening, and others.  Catarina's report on her visit states that we need a paradigm shift in the way we manage water and she recommends pilot projects, research, integrated planning, and multiple benefits.  In my session I spoke about the great potential to learn about needed structural changes in water management -- to recover resources, use natural systems, develop innovative financing and business models, and others -- that apply both in developed and developing countries.  Achieving the human right to water and sanitation will only occur through such a paradigm shift.