Water
For most of last week, something like 500 000 people in Norway's capital, Oslo, were told to boil their water before drinking it.
Parasites had been discovered, among them the Giardia Parasite, that will make you sick for weeks, sometimes even months, and that's all in all a nasty little critter.
Ok, for the average household, having to boil the water is just an inconvenience. A major one, that ought to be avoided, but still, it's something you can live with for a while. The hospitals and other large institutions are a challenge, though - especially since many of the people there are weakened already.
So - the Civil Guard delivered fresh water to the larger institutions daily, in tanks. For a few days, that worked too.
Oslo has one source of water. One. No alternative pipelines to other sources - just the one lake, and it's an open one. The water is purified and cleansed before it reaches the taps of course, but the pipelines are old and worn, and there are a host of possible sources of contamination along the way.
This time, the contamination was a natural one, and it was treatable. Half a million people in Oslo can now drink water from their taps again.
The Water Boards' routines for testing and information to the public have been straightened out, and everyone agrees that the pipelines should be replaced as soon as possible. (Nothing is said about when. Not much is said about connecting to an alternative source either...)
Water truly is the essence of all life, and it's no longer necessarily a reliable commodity. Even here.
3 opinions:
Well, we are living in Oslo South, and when we read about it in the paper, we immediatly startet to boil the water, even for the cat's fish.
But I realized it was something that was misinformed: Oslo do have two fresh water sources, which are not connected (as far as i know)- Our Watersupply comes from a newer and smaller one - and about 50.000 had no problems during there horrible days. That fact, was hidden more or less between the lines. Lesson learned: Media tends to present the negative and hide the good news.
Good post anyway. It tells about how depended on water we are. Did you know that the consumption of fresh water in the world increased 6 times that of the population in the 20iet? And by 2025 half of this globes population will suffer from lack of pure water. If nothing is done. One project "The big river - project" has been started
There have been several areas throughout the U.S. where the giardia parasite struck the water supplies. A town about 14-15 miles from where I live had that problem 20 some years ago when I worked at a restaurant there. We had to boil all the water then too there. The hardest part was that we had taps set up at the waitress station which were still functioning but we didn't use that water. However some of the regular customers would come in grab a clean glass and help themselves to a glass of the tap water (unsafe at the time) unless one of the waitress happened to see them heading to do that and we had to stop them at the pass, so to speak. Needless to say, just on that scale it was a hassle and that would be very small potatoes compared to a city the size of Oslo.
True Toraa, but the vast majority of Oslo get their water from the one supply and have no alternative an no "plan B"...
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