57m Nigerians lack access to potable water, as 1m children die yearly -USAID.
WorldStage Newsonline– United State Agency for International Development (USAID) has revealed that over 57 million Nigerians have no access to potable water while one million Nigerian children die yearly due to lack of potable drinking water.
USAID Mission Director, Stephen M. Haykin who stated these in Kaduna on Thursday at the occasion of official launch of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) said the USAID was supporting the WASH programme with $2.5 million to enable Nigerians have access to potable drinking water.
According to him, "Having a clean water and sanitation is very essential for the development of a healthy society.
"Research has shown that, over 57 million of the Nigerian population don’t have access to potable water and sadly, about one million Nigerian children die yearly for lack of potable drinking water."
Earlier, WASH project Coordinator, Timeyin Uwejamomere, said the project was expected to last for two years, ending in November 2018, adding that it will primarily target urban areas and focus the States of Bauchi and Kaduna.
He said, "This is why we established a country office in the city of Kaduna, and last month a satellite office was opened in Bauchi.
In his speech to the occasion, Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-rufai who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Malam Bashir Saidu said when Zaria Water Work is completed, it will provide 150 million litres of water for the populace.
Also, the Bauchi State governor, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar regretted that the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the State had increased the demand for water supply at the expense of original supply.
He therefore pledged the commitment and political will of his government to ensure the success of the project.

CH2M to provide operations, maintenance services for Lucan Biddulph Water System.
The water system includes an inline booster station, elevated storage tower, reservoir and a reservoir pumping station, which together provide water to more than 4,500 residents in the Lucan andGrantonurban centers, and rural properties within the Township.
CH2M’s partnership with the community will focus on supporting an aging workforce and providing additional expertise on water quality sampling for the Township’s drinking water quality management system.
The drinking water QMS includes the transmission and distribution of potable drinking water to consumers and services to approximately 1,264 connections throughout the Township.
"The Township ofLucan Biddulph, in awarding us this contract, is not only gaining a trusted partner for its OM services, but also access to our industry-leading practices and training to strengthen its entire organization," said CH2M OM Services Senior Vice President and Managing DirectorSteve Meininger.
Several other municipalities and communities inCanadaalready signed on to access this expertise, including the nearby Municipality of Huron East, where CH2M is providing operations and management services at three mechanical wastewater treatment facilities and four well-based water-supply treatment and distribution systems.
CH2M also holds contracts with the Municipality ofLambton Shoresfor its various treatment and distribution systems, theVillage of Oil Springs’wastewater treatment plant, St. Clair Township, theTown of Petroliaand theTown of Plympton-WyominginOntario.
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57 million Nigerians lack access to portable drinking water- USAID.
The Mission Director, United State Agency for International Development (USAID), Stephen M. Haykin has said that over 57 million Nigerians lack access to portable water in the country.
Speaking on Thursday during the official launch of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Kaduna, he also added that one million Nigerian children die yearly for lack of drinking water.
He said the USAID was supporting the programme with $2.5 million to enable Nigerians have access to portable drinking water.
In his speech on the occasion, Kaduna State governor, Malam Nasir El-rufai who was represented by his Chief of staff, Malam Bashir Saidu said when Zaria water work is completed, it will provide 150 million litres of water daily for the populace.
On his part, the governor of Bauchi State, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar lamented that the influx of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the State had increased the demand for water supply at the expense of the original supply.
He therefore, pledged the commitment of his government to ensure the success of the project.

Oil isn’t even flowing through the Dakota Access pipeline yet, but already there’s been a leak.
"This is what we have said all along: Oil pipelines leak and spill," said Standing Rock Sioux Tribe chairman Dave Archambault II.
"The Dakota Access pipeline has not yet started shipping the proposed half million barrels of oil per day, and we are already seeing confirmed reports of oil spills from the pipeline."
Watch the VICELAND documentary on Standing Rock: The spill happened April 4 during the testing of a surge pump, according to Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The surge pump had a mechanical failure, but the entire spill happened within a lined containment area.
* Walsh told me that South Dakota typically gets 200 to 300 spills a year from fuel leaks, pipelines, oil wells, and various other sources.
State regulations require companies to report spills right away, and Walsh said ETP did (it reported the spill two days after the fact, on April 6).
That decision could take weeks or months.
asks Hasselman.
As for the April spill, Hasselman pointed out that it would have received more attention if it were a major spill that affected drinking water.

Hide caption House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 4, 2017. Pelosi called Wednesday for an independent panel to investigate possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Pelosi pushes for special panel on Russia probe; Dakota Access pipeline leaked 84 gallons of oil in April; DeVos booed speaking at historically black university; US risks a backlash for its growing role in Syrian conflict. By from wire reports Pelosi pushes for special panel on Russia probe WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is threatening to use a parliamentary maneuver to force a vote on a bill that would create an independent panel to investigate possible contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Pelosi says in a letter Wednesday to House Democrats that they’ll file a discharge petition if Speaker Paul Ryan doesn’t call up the legislation “immediately upon our return next week.” The House is on recess this week. A discharge petition allows a measure to be brought straight to the floor, bypassing consideration by committee. But successes are rare through this approach because a majority of House members must sign the petition. Pelosi says the “fireworks at the Department of Justice demand that we remove the investigation from the Trump-appointed Justice Department leadership.” Dakota Access pipeline leaked 84 gallons of oil in April BISMARCK, N.D. — The Dakota Access pipeline leaked 84 gallons…

Dakota Access Pipeline suffered a minor oil spill in April.
The spill occurred at a rural pump station and didn’t pose a threat to the public’s drinking water, local authorities said.
“It was immediately contained and cleaned up,” said Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist at South Dakota’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
He said the incident was caused by a mechanical failure and mitigated by a liner that provides secondary containment.
Its construction has been strongly opposed by Native Americans and environmentalists.
“This just proves their hastiness is fueled by greed not in the best interest for tribes or the Dakotas,” Joye Braun, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux, said in a statement put out by Indigenous Environmental Network, a nonprofit that has opposed Dakota Access.
“Do we have more spills just waiting to happen?
This is our home, our land and our water,” Braun said.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe continues to fight Energy Transfer Partners in court in an effort to halt the project’s expected opening next month.
“This is what we have said all along: oil pipelines leak and spill,” Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement about the incident.

Report: Georgia fifth in drinking water violations.
James Capp, chief of the Watershed Protection Branch within the state Environmental Protection Division, noted that Georgia is in the middle of the pack when ranked based on health-based violations.
Statewide, there were about 900 systems with 1,870 violations serving about 3.8 million people, according to the NRDC report.
There are about 2,400 water systems in the state.
“Just because it’s a monitoring and reporting violation does not necessarily mean everything is A-OK,” Wu said.
It just means we don’t know, and your customers don’t know, and you don’t know what’s going on.” The report found that people who live in rural communities could be particularly vulnerable.
Nationwide, small systems that serve 500 or fewer people account for nearly 70 percent of all violations of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.
They should demand that.” Wu urged people to inquire about their water systems.
Proposed federal budget cuts could further hamper the state’s small systems, Wu said.
“The water they’re drinking is safe,” Matthews said.

Varsity applies grandma’s wisdom for safe drinking water needs.
For many of us, the sight of water stored in copper vessels reminds us of our grandmothers’ homes.
Recognising copper’s potent use in removing pathogens from water and making it fit to drink, the city-based Transdisciplinary University has launched TamRas, a low-cost copper-based water purification device for rural areas.
Reasearchers at TDU, led by Padma Venkat, principal investigator, studied the effect of storing water overnight in copper vessels.
She found that when water, inoculated with colony forming units of Escherichia coli, Salmonella Typhi and Vibrio cholerae, was stored overnight at room temperature in copper vessels, the organisms were no longer recoverable when cultured, compared to water stored in control glass bottles under similar conditions.
The results of this study were published in the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development in 2011.
The team designed several iterations keeping in mind cost and utility, until arriving on the present design.
“The final device had to be simple and sustainable, without complicated parts that need repair or replacement,” said Dr. Venkat.
The project had to be scalable and community-driven to be successful.
“Women in rural areas spend a major portion of the day in solving the problem of safe water,” said Hari Ramamurthy, advisor to TDU.

08.05.2017 — Since April 2016, the BUCHI Scrubber K-415 has been a water sponsor for Helvetas (www.helvetas.ch).
What that means is that for every Scrubber sold, BUCHI donates 50 Swiss francs to water supply projects so that more and more people can have access to clean water.
Helvetas is a development organisation founded in 1995.
The opportunity for education and an independent income improves the situation of families so that they are able to take control of their own lives.
Their children then have the chance to have an education, earn their own money and take control of their own lives.
Education Because the children no longer become ill, they can go to school regularly – the essential requirement for an independent life.
What does the Scrubber have to do with it?
The Scrubber saves life-sustaining drinking water.
However, the Scrubber offers a number of advantages over the Water jet pump: The Scrubber reduces water consumption by more than 300 litres per hour It completely separates off the fumes and neutralises them It only runs when needed because the Scrubber is fully controlled via the digester The Scrubber contributes in two ways – it saves essential water in every laboratory and so plays a part in the principle of careful and responsible use of life-sustaining resources.
And secondly, for every Scrubber sold 50 Swiss francs are donated to Helvetas.

The director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency on Monday blasted the pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners for a “pattern” of 18 spills of drilling materials and said that the size of the biggest spill could reach 5 million gallons, more than double original estimates.
Craig Butler, the Ohio EPA director, said that his agency has imposed about $400,000 in fines on Energy Transfer Partners, the same company that was recently embroiled in controversy over its Dakota Access crude oil pipeline.
While drilling mud used to cool and lubricate drilling equipment is not toxic, the biggest spill has poured fluid the consistency of a milk shake several feet deep in a previously pristine wetland and would “kill just about everything in that wetland,” Butler said.
The Rover project is the first of two pipelines Energy Transfer Partners planned to build across Ohio.
A spokesman for the company Daryl Owen said that Butler had “mischaracterized” what had been taking place and that the state regulators “have no jurisdiction to fine us.” He said that the leaks, which he said were “inadvertent releases that come up through natural fissures in the soil and rock,” were “anticipated in the permit” from FERC.
Butler’s comments raised the confrontation between the state EPA and Energy Transfer Partners that began in April when the company notified the agency that it had twice spilled drilling fluids in pristine Ohio wetlands and that the larger of the two spills covered an area the size of 8½ football fields.
Energy Transfer Partners said at the time that the larger spill just south of the town of Navarre, Ohio, could be as much as 2 million gallons.
The last of the 16 spills was reported Monday; the company spilled about 200 gallons of drilling slurry into the Conotton Creek, affecting about half a mile of the waterway about 50 miles south of Akron.
The Ohio EPA director also said the agency had given Energy Transfer Partners permission to hire contractors to do limited burning of brush and trees to clear a right of way for the Rover pipeline.
“We agree that the drilling mud is not toxic,” Butler said, “but if you take millions of gallons of bentonite clay and put it in the middle of a category 3, superior quality wetland like they did.