From Yahoo! News
A well in the villiage of Van Phuc, outside Hanoi; the water is polluted with arsenic. Throughout south and southeast Asia, at least 100 million people are threatened by such wells. Photo from e! Science News.
Arsenic has infiltrated an aquifer that provides water for the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, scientists said Wednesday, warning that the phenomenon could also occur elsewhere.
Massive over-pumping of the aquifer caused the problem, but the threat is advancing slowly and Hanoi has ample time to deal with it, they said.
The experts said the phenomenon was a threat in other locations where naturally occurring arsenic lies dangerously close to over-exploited groundwater.
“This is the first time we’ve been able to show that a previously clean aquifer has been contaminated,” said Alexander van Geen, a professor of geochemistry at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New York.
“The amount of water being pumped really dominates the system. Arsenic is moving,” he said.
The research, published in the journal Nature, entailed extensive tests around the village of Van Phuc, located on the Red River 10 kilometres (six miles) southeast of Hanoi.
