A youth walks by the edge of the Rimac river in Chosica, Lima, Peru March 18, 2009. The Rímac River is the most important source of potable water for Peru's capital, actually a plot of desert in the western Pacific edge. It runs down through nearly 160 kilometers from the snowy peaks of the Huarochiri province to the port of Callao, one of Pacific Rim's most important raw materials exporter's ports. The country has approved a new law regulating water property and utilization that several social organizations claim will affect the health of the riverside population and the capital's water quality, opening the path to privatization and making the control over the river basins too flexible. With the Rimac river serving nearly 6 million people in the Lima metropolitan area itself Peruvians have reasons to be suspicious. Their biggest water source has been systematically contaminated by mining projects in the high river basin resulting in the introducing of plumb and arsenic among other metals in the food chain. Also nearly 35% of the food traded in Lima carries higher than allowed levels of fecal coliforms due to untreated waste water from informal settlements being used as irrigation.
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