Even the smallest daily activity, like brushing one's teeth, requires a trip to the tank, where people pay a large portion of their meager salaries for containers of cloudy,brackish water.
VOA: standard.2010.08.04
The chemical, used to treat cloudywater, went straight into the main water supply.
The machine blends iron, bleach and sodium hydroxide to form a dark purple liquid mixture of ferrate, salt and water that gets metered into the water supply. (The color disappears instantly as it reacts with the water.) Common disinfectants ozone and chlorine can turn the watercloudy or, worse, leave behind harmful chemical by-products.