WATER ABLAZE - Patagonia Sin Represas

12.1 Problems and the Search for Possible Solutions
Growing in significance is the contamination caused by substances
such as medical drugs, e.g. beta-blockers, active painkilling substances
and antidepressants; hormones such as artificial oestrogen from birth
control pills; substances used in the plastics industry, which are similar
in effect to hormones; X-ray contrast media and other chemicals.
Common to all these substances is the fact that they can hardly be
retained, as a rule, by the usual methods of filtration. Hormones can
have an additional effect on fish populations and other aquatic animals,
which even develop female traits. Some scientists believe that they also
reduce the fertility of human sperm via the drinking water cycle. In the
developing world, drinking water contamination caused by bacteria
and viruses – and the resultant diseases – is giving rise to great concern.
• Medicinal drugs should be disposed of safely and not allowed
to enter the sewerage system.
• Filtration systems in sewage treatment plants should be adapted
accordingly and further improved by the use of microfiltration
and activated carbon filters. In this respect, too, privatisation
has serious consequences: whereas a publicly-operated
sewage works, run on the principle of cost-effectiveness, is
able to practise very expensive methods of sewage purification,
the private operator will always try to keep these costs as
low as possible. To compensate for the poor quality of water
purification, larger amounts of chlorine are often added to the
drinking water.
• Purification plants using reeds are still utilised in rural areas
to this day and offer another sensible method of filtration
(overgrown ground filters). Such simple and natural sewage
treatment plants can effectively reduce the number of diseasecausing
agents and eliminate viruses or pathogenic germs such
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