Friday, March 29, 2013

A new source of contamination in Rajarata



My previous blog article was on CKDU, but I just came across another article, see link below that frightened the daylights out of me as another complementary reason as to why the Rajarata has been afflicted by these deadly diseases with no directly identifiable causes.               


I will not re-write it hear except to say that ‘Accumulation of Algal toxins in water is dangerous. These toxins have been reported to contribute to liver and kidney ailments and some types of cancers. As these toxins are thermo stable they are not destroyed by boiling the water. They are cumulative poisons that could pass from lactating mothers to their infants.’

When one reads further, the likely cause is the over- use of triple super phosphate that farmers use in their agriculture. I have always maintained that providing fertilizer worth Rs4000 for Rs350 is a recipe for disaster as part of the Agricultural Fertilizer subsidy. Farmer do not value the product and over use it in their work, both denying the plant of the needed nutrients by drowning it in this, but also contributing to the above making drinking water lethal.

It was apt that the article is titled, “Ruhuna (with likes of white elephents like Hambantota Harbor and Mattala Airport) shouldn’t frolic whilst Rajarata is devastated”

I am so keen to find some immediate action to prevent further loss of life and health effects and resulting costs to the people and country, that I have a whole file collected over the past year on all newspaper related articles on this subject if anyone wishes to use it and has time to come up with the sum total of what they are trying to say.

So whilst not trying to sound too alarmist let us pressure this government to act fast without delay on one of the most pressing unsolved mysteries that is devastating the belt of people who have been colonized with lands in the NCP.

Farmers are people who expend a good deal of energy outdoors, requiring copious amounts of water. It is therefore essential that they realize that the water they drink must NOT be harmful to their health. Why should we tell them not to smoke when the water they drink in this instance is even more poisonous. Arguably the alcohol they consume may help in killing the toxins they ingest with the water they drink! I am only making a guess.

The state owes it to them, as they fooled them with the Fertilizer subsidy to vote for this Government, which is using the Fertilizer itself to indirectly kill those very people who voted for them! How ironic! They should be told this, surely.            

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