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| Homes are built on pitts. photo credit: Andrew Quilty |
By Matt Siegel, The New York Times, October 16, 2012
FUNAFUTI, Tuvalu — The sun is setting over the Pacific
islet, casting the isolated lagoon in brilliant shades of red, orange and
topaz. Towering palm trees sway slowly in the warm tropical breeze. Out in the
distance, fishermen in a small boat slowly troll the coral atolls for reef
fish, much as the people of Tuvalu have done for hundreds of years or more.
But none of these
things are what hit you first about this setting, on the edge of the water.
What hits you first is the smell. Household garbage mingles with wastes both
human and animal in open pits that, when filled with seawater during high tide,
turn into a fetid soup under the blistering sun. It is in one of the dozens of
precariously balanced stilt houses over those pits that Kalalisa Uilese lives
with her husband and three children.
“There’s not enough land,” Ms. Uilese, 47, said matter-of-factly
inside her dark, makeshift living room. “That’s why we build our houses on
them.”
Tuvalu, a tiny cluster of nine coral atolls and islands about halfway
between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific, is one of the smallest
countries on the planet, and many scientists say it is getting smaller. Its
population of fewer than 12,000 people inhabits a landmass of 26 square
kilometers, or 10 square miles, about a third the size of Manhattan. On
Funafuti, the main atoll and Tuvalu’s capital, the widest point between the
lagoon around which the town spreads and the ocean beyond is just half a
kilometer.
The lowest point is just above sea level, a spot from which you can be
tricked into thinking that you are somehow standing below the vast Pacific,
looking up rather than out into it.
Data from the National Research Council in the United States predict
that global sea levels could rise by as much as 55 inches by 2100 as a result
of climate change, which, when combined with
damage to the coral roots of Tuvalu by rising acidity in seawater, could
threaten the country’s very existence. Then there is coastal erosion, a result
of rising water and harsh weather but also human activities like excavation for
construction and other development projects.
During World War II, as fighting between the United
States and Japan raged across the Pacific, the British government granted the
United States military the use of its colony on what is now Tuvalu but was then
known as the Ellice Islands. Massive antiaircraft guns, the concrete base of at
least one of which still stands a lonely vigil in the surf, were quickly
erected. But for the islands to reach their full wartime potential, they needed
an airstrip. Large quantities of coral were dug up and carted off to be crushed
and mixed for the tarmac. The gaping pits that were left behind across
Funafuti, called “borrow pits,” were never filled and eventually began to be
used for refuse. Add to this the doubling of Tuvalu’s population since 1980,
and it is easy to understand why, as usable land dwindled, homes like Ms.
Uilese’s started to stretch across the pits.
For Betty Vuva, 49, the head teacher at Nauri Primary School, the
borrow pits and their attendant health problems are a constant source of
anxiety. As the changing tides have steadily encroached on the island from
without, she says, the land around the pits has become more crowded.
“Well, so far no houses have collapsed,” she said with a wry laugh.
The government of Tuvalu, which survives on a combination of foreign
aid and dividends from the sale in 1998 of the .tv Internet domain name, has
repeatedly asked the United States government for assistance in refilling the
borrow pits. In 2003, the United States Army Corps of Engineers carried out a
site assessment and cost study at the behest of the State Department. The
152-page report acknowledged the provenance of the pits and starkly identified
their cost to the island.
“Solid waste disposal sites surrounding residential homes and animals
have developed into a health hazard for nearby residents,” the report said. “An
engineered solid waste landfill site and management plan needs to be
implemented for the safety of the people and longevity of the island.”
Three options for refilling the pits were considered in the document,
ranging in cost from $14,950 to $28.5 million, but the issue has gone no
further. Tuvalu, which has an annual gross domestic product of about $35
million, says it is ill-equipped to act on the report by itself.
“The government has never had the financial resources needed to fill
in the borrow pits,” Prime Minister Willy Telavi said in an e-mailed response
to questions. “We just don’t have the money. Not even close.”
He added: “Over the years we have approached many donor countries,
including the United States, about filling in the borrow pits but without
success. If the U.S., which to us has always been the likely donor to fix the
problem, was willing to revisit the issue of filling in the borrow pits we
would welcome their efforts with open arms.”
That, however, seems unlikely, at least in the short term, according
to a senior United States administration official who cited the costs of
carrying out the project using environmentally sound methods.
“In order not to cause further environmental damage to the land or
surrounding seas, material may have to be imported, which would increase the
cost considerably,” the official said in an e-mail on the condition of
anonymity because she was not authorized to comment publicly. “We continue to
work on this with the government of Tuvalu and we look forward to finding a
mutually acceptable, affordable and environmentally responsible solution.”
For James Conway, 53, an adviser on energy policy to the Ministry of
Economic Planning and Foreign Affairs, that kind of solution has already been
too long in coming. Mr. Conway, an American who moved to Tuvalu as a United
States Peace Corps volunteer more than 20 years ago, is now married to a
Tuvaluan woman with whom he has a teenage daughter, and he worries about the
health effects of the borrow pits.
“People in greater numbers are starting to build next to them, over
them and in them with houses on stilts,” he said in an interview inside his
sweltering office in the island’s main government building. However, Mr. Conway
dismissed the idea that Washington somehow owes it to Tuvalu to fill in the
pits, pointing out that the runway has brought enormous economic benefits to
the country.
The idea of the Americans “filling in the borrow pits as some kind of
war reparations is probably stretching it a little bit,” he said. Still, he
added, “it is valuable land. If the borrow pits could be filled in, there would
be economic value associated with it. It would dramatically improve public
health by decreasing water-borne illnesses.”
For Ravina Falemi, 27, and her three small daughters, that would be a
blessing. On a recent afternoon she stood holding her youngest daughter, Emma,
as about a dozen half-naked children splashed around in the acrid water. One
small boy stood on the narrow dirt path leading to the cluster of homes where
Ms. Falemi lives, fishing in the muck with a homemade rod.
“The common sickness is diarrhea,” she said. “We always advise the
children not to come here because of that, but sometimes small kids wash their
hands in it and then come home and take a biscuit or something.”
Should the United States help with the pits? Yes, she said. But will
anyone ever actually do anything about them?
“Who knows?” she said. “Maybe we’ll just migrate for good.”
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