The discovery of fecal matter in 11 different brands of bottled water didn’t exactly shock consumers in Paraguay’s capital, Asunción. For years, doctors and engineers alike had warned that industrial discharges and sewage tainted much of the water supply in outlying areas of the city not served by the municipal system.

But when Paraguay’s Public Health Ministry retracted a spokesman’s disclosure of the contamination on Dec. 3, public anger set in. The municipal government of Asunción and the Comptroller General’s Office launched an investigation, according to the Association of Users and Consumers of Paraguay (Asucop), a nonprofit group. Now, with the investigation still ongoing, pressure is mounting on the government to show the results. “We’re warning the public to avoid bottled water,” says Juan Vera, Asucop’s president. “We’re alarmed by the conditions in which water is being extracted in the metropolitan area and need the government to give us guarantees of its safety.”

Focus on aquifer

Much of Asunción’s water is drawn from the Paraguay River and treated by the municipal water system. But a significant amount in 10 satellite communities that form part of the Asunción metropolitan area is pumped from the Patiño aquifer by private water companies, community systems and household wells and is subject to varying levels of treatment. The World Bank says some 20% of drinking water in these outlying areas is not treated at all.

The Patiño aquifer, which flows under the capital, supplies drinking water to more than half of the metropolitan area’s inhabitants. Among those tapping the aquifer are suppliers of bottled water, beer and soft drinks and over 700,000 people who live in the communities outside the city center.

Controversy over tainted bottled water has intensified concern that sewage and chemical wastes are infiltrating the aquifer, jeopardizing the health of those who depend on it. The scare also has underscored infrastructure problems in an urban center overwhelmed by the influx of tens of thousands of impoverished, rural migrants over the last decade.

Greater Asunción, with a population estimated at 2.8 million, is bursting at the seams. On account of its average annual population growth of 2.4%, infrastructure—in housing and roads, and especially in sewage and water treatment—is falling far behind, critics say.

Government figures provide a snapshot. Nearly 80% of the 737,000 people living near the Patiño aquifer outside the city center lack access to a sewage system, using instead cesspools that contaminate the groundwater.

The government is about to begin using money from a US$64 million loan given by the World Bank last year to improve water infrastructure, says Félix Carvallo, a member of the Paraguayan Association of Water Resources. “But we need hundreds, not tens, of millions in investment. Nitrate levels from fecal matter are rising in the water and there is a risk of possibly high levels of heavy metals, fertilizers and insecticides from factories and farms.”

In 2006, a study by the National University’s engineering school found levels of nitrates from fecal matter near or above government-set limits in a third of 100 water samples taken from the aquifer in outlying districts.

Worrisome reports

Health effects of the contamination were not studied. But Félix Villar, an engineering professor at the school who has participated in water quality studies, says he had heard reports of parasitic infection, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal disorders in outlying districts.

The World Bank speaks of an “urgent situation,” even while critics say its support is insufficient. In a January 2009 report on Paraguay’s water sector, the bank writes of underground and surface waters in greater Asunción “with high levels of contamination” from industrial effluents, solid waste and sewage that “endanger the health of the population.”

Says Villar: “We need more extensive and better water treatment to remove bacteria and chemical waste. In some neighborhoods, you can clearly see the impact of fouled water.”

In 2007, Paraguay passed a Water Resources Law guaranteeing each citizen access to a minimum daily amount of drinking water as a human right and calling for sewage- and water-treatment standards. But the legislation has not been implemented, as environmental authorities still haven’t finalized its regulations.

The backlog in water infrastructure is only starting to be addressed, the officials say. Big projects in the past never focused on improving the sanitary sewer system or the treatment of waste liquids, concentrating instead on potable water alone, says Fernando Larroza, director-general of water resources in the Secretariat of the Environment (Seam).

Adds Larroza: “As a government, we must try to put our efforts into . . . treating our wastes and our water. We also hope to create a laboratory within the Secretariat of the Environment so that we can begin studying the level of contamination in our streams and rivers, so as to know exactly what is happening.”