The state has 15,798 rural habitations, out of which 8,535 habitations are provided drinking water at 40-55 litres per consumer daily.

originally posted on June 21, 2016

More than 40 per cent of the rural habitations in Jammu and Kashmir do not have access to proper drinking water facilities but the state government has assured that all such habitations will be covered by 2020.

The state has 15,798 rural habitations, out of which 8,535 habitations (54 per cent) are fully covered and are being provided drinking water at 40-55 litres per consumer daily, Minister of State for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control, Farooq Ahmad Andrabi said at the Legislative Council.

The minister was replying to a question of BJP MLC Sofi Mohammad Yousuf Andrabi.

He said the remaining 7,263 habitations (46 per cent) are partially covered with varying supply level of drinking water, adding that they would be fully covered till 2019-20.

The minister added that 395 Slow Sand/ Rapid Sand filtration plants with conventional technology were functional in the state at present.

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originally posted on June 21, 2016

An El Niño-induced drought in Vietnam has left one million people in urgent need of food assistance and two million people lacking access to drinking water, Europe’s humanitarian aid agency said.

The country’s worst drought in 90 years coupled with seawater intrusion into the Mekong River delta have destroyed fruit, rice and sugar crops in the world’s third-largest rice exporter after India and Thailand.

“The disruption in precipitation patterns has affected the livelihoods, food security and access to safe water of the people of Vietnam,” Christos Stylianides, EU commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, said in a statement.

El Nino is an abnormal warming of waters in the equatorial Pacific that occurs once every three to four years.

A strong El Nino would normally cause drought in wide swathes of Southeast Asia, with Indonesia and the Philippines bearing the brunt of the drought. The 2015/16 El NIno is the worst since the 1997/98 edition, which just happens to be the worst Nino in recorded history.

The EU’s humanitarian arm ECHO said it would provide €2 million (US$2.3 million) in funding for emergency relief.

“This EU contribution will help provide life-saving assistance to affected families at this critical time, ensuring that their basic needs are met,” Stylianides said.

Originally posted on August 7, 2016

As every year, during the summer, the water shortage in the Gaza Strip is accentuated. At the same time, the energy shortage caused by the blockade prevents engines and water pumps from pushing it from wells and tanks to houses and farming fields.

The Beach Camp is one of the more densely populated areas of Gaza and therefore one of the most affected by water scarcity. In addition, because of its location, directly on the seafront, its aquifers are some of the most affected by the infiltration of seawater and wastewater.

ISM collected several testimonies of people affected by this problem in order to discuss them with engineer Monther Shoblak, General Director of the Palestinian National Authority Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU).

The first testimony is that of Azzam Miflah El Sheikh Khalil, who says “the water comes only once every three days, and just for a few hours, which is not enough [to fill the tanks]. People can’t imagine how we are suffering because of the lack of water. In addition, there is no difference between the water from our wells and the sea water… The main problem is that when there is electricity there’s no running water and when there is running water there’s no electricity . The only solution we have is to buy a generator to produce electricity when there’s water, but who can buy it if there is no work?”

In the next block lives the Mokhtar Kamal Abu Riela, who stressed the same problem: “When there’s water there’s no electricity, and vice versa. Maybe once every four or five days we have water and electricity at the same time for a few hours. Every day we buy gasoline to run the generator the hours when there’s running water, but the economic situation of the people is very precarious and not everyone can spend 20 NIS a day on gas just to have water in the tanks. We spend more on gasoline than in electricity or water itself”.

We asked the Mokhtar if he remembers when that problem began: “Ten years ago or so, with the blockade”.

Finally, Im Majed Miqdad explained the difficulties she and her large family are faced with in their day to day life due to water scarcity: “There [are] people who build underground tanks [as those can be filled without bombs] or who buy a generator operated with gasoline. But not everyone can afford these things. I’m one of those people who can not pay NIS 20-30 a day in gasoline to run the generator. Today, for example, in my home and in the homes of my four sons and their families we don’t have a drop of water, the four tanks are empty. We are waiting until running water and electricity will coincide in order to fill them. The situation is very hard, we have no water, we have no electricity, we have no work … If water and electricity would coincide at least three hours a day it would be enough to fill the tanks enough to spend the day. People must understand that when there is no water you can not use the bathroom, you can not take a shower, you can not clean the dishes, the house, the clothes … And here the families have five, six, ten members … we are not just two or three people in each house”.

Given the frequent complaints of the population, the first thing that engineer Monther Shoblak wants to explain is that the failures in the water supply are due to the power cuts and therefore they can’t control them: “It is impossible for us to match the running water with the electricity, as to carry water from one area to the other, motors and pumps are needed and those can’t operate without electricity. We can’t control it because we don’t know which bomb will fail and when”.

However, he explains, the water problem in the Gaza Strip is more serious than that: “Indeed there is an over-exploitation of the aquifer in the Gaza Strip. This is because the coastal aquifer, which runs from Sinai to Yaffa and that is the only source of water available today in the Gaza Strip, has been nurtured historically by rainwater and by the water from the mountains of Al Khalil (Hebron) and the Naqab. However, for decades our neighbors [the Zionists] have been building dams that prevent the water from following its natural course to Gaza, leaving rainwater as the sole source of the coastal aquifer. These dams are illegal, since they involve a violation of the conventional agreements on transboundary water sources. “

Because of these illegal policies practiced by the Zionist entity, “the production capacity of Gaza’s aquifer has dropped to 55 million cubic meters a year. While the water demand of the Strip is 200 million cubic meters a year”.

This overexploitation is decreasing, to an alarming point, the level of the aquifer, causing seawater to seep and fill that vacuum, mixing with the fresh water and contaminating the aquifer. Additionally, to this chloride contamination caused by seawater seeping into the aquifer, the water is contaminated by nitrates from leaking sewage and fertilizers: “These are more dangerous than chlorides, as they can’t be detected by smell or taste”.

The successive attacks on the Gaza Strip have severely affected the sewage systems and destroyed thousands of septic tanks, causing in many cases wastewater to end up in the aquifer.

In addition, due to the lack of resources of local authorities, only 72% of Gaza is equipped with sewage systems. The rest depends on septic tanks built without supervision: “The occupation never provided the necessary services, such as mandated by international law. They didn’t build enough plants for wastewater treatment in order to protect the environment. If we look at the objective data it seems that their intention was just the opposite. These plants shouldn’t be built in sandy areas, to avoid leaks, and should have an exit to the sea to prevent overflow in case of emergency. However, they built the main one in Beit Lahia, the sandiest area in Gaza and without exit to the sea. So when there is an overflow, which is quite common, wastewater inevitably ends up in the aquifer and contaminating farmlands in the area”.

At the same time, several cases of viral meningitis arose all along the Gaza Strip, some of which were mortal. This seems to be caused by wastewater contamination. This situation has forced the local authorities to close many swimming pools and advice the people not to swim in the sea, during the next weeks.

By Molly Wood and Eliza Mills, originally posted on August 5, 2016

It’s not just Zika, and the economy, and politics causing concern at the Olympics this year.

As teams from across the world prepare to take to the sea for swimming, sailing, rowing and canoeing events, they’re worrying about water. Water quality in Rio is a major concern for athletes who could get sick touching or swallowing just a bit of it, but it’s also a huge issue for Brazilians, day in, day out — the games are just shining a light on the topic.

About 50 percent of what Brazilians flush down the toilet ends up in the country’s waterways. Diseases related to contaminated water are the second leading cause of death for children under five in Brazil. And Brazil is far from the only country with water problems. Access to clean water is an issue all around the world, particularly in developing countries.

Even in the United States, where there are pretty strict standards for water quality in recreational waterways and for drinking water, problems crop up — like sewage overflow during rainstorms, in New York, or lead poisoning in Flint, Mich.

Zoë Schlanger, senior writer at Newsweek, joined Marketplace Weekend to discuss water issues at the Rio Olympics and beyond.

by Hannah Grover, originally posted on August 25, 2016

FARMINGTON — After three months under a boil water advisory, AV Water customers say they are frustrated with water bills they claim charge them for water they haven’t been able to use.

AV Water attorney Germaine Chappelle said  confusion over the bills is due to a software change that shows water use differently than the previous software. This is the first month customers’ bills have been generated by the system, which reflects seven digits on the meters rather than four digits.

Chappelle said in the past, people thought they were using 30 gallons of water when they were actually using 3,000 gallons.

“They’re not actually using more water,” Chappelle said.

AV Water sent a notice to customers stating the average person uses 2,790 gallons of water per month. Those numbers typically go up in the summer, Chappelle said. She said water bills are generally higher then because of swamp cooler use and yards being watered.

While Chappelle said residents should not be paying more for water, some customers are reporting higher bills than in the past. When Aubrea Danks received a bill for more than $145 for water use between July 6 and Aug. 6, she was surprised. Even with eight people living in the house, the family had never received a bill for more than $50, she said. The bill stated the family had used nearly 18,000 gallons of water.

Meanwhile, the family has been purchasing bottled water and using propane to boil water from the faucets after a boil water advisory was issued about three months ago.

“They’re charging outrageous prices for water we can’t even use,” she said.

Chappelle said glitches in the new software may have caused some billing problems, and she encouraged customers with concerns or questions about their bill to contact her at germaine.chappelle@gknet.com. The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission approved a rate structure for AV Water customers in February. Customers pay a base fee of $30.77 and have additional “commodity costs” based on water use.

Customer Melissa Calderon said she thinks the company should re-examine all the bills for the past cycle instead of having customers dispute their bills.

“It’s not our responsibility,” she said. “It’s their responsibility.”

Calderon received a bill for $171 for 20,000 gallons used over 29 days. She said last year, the highest bill she paid was $112 in September, and her average bill has been $90 a month. Her bill also stated that during the same time period last year, she used 7,800 gallons of water.

While  AV Water customers are concerned about their bills, the rates the company reports are not unusual for rural San Juan County residents. Nine of the 10 non-tribal rural water user groups either post their rates online or provided The Daily Times with rate information.

Ayliffe also operates the North Star Mutual Domestic Water, which reported the highest base rate at $39.90. The Lower Valley Water Users Association, which serves Kirtland, Fruitland and Waterflow, reported the lowest base rate at $18. While the nearby Southside Water Users Association has a lower base charge — only $28 — than AV Water, its commodity charges are higher than AV Water’s rates.

AV Water customer Marie Brown expressed concern about the billing cycle. She said she was billed for 49 days while other people were billed for 11 or 15 days.

“There’s no rhyme or reason for how they’re doing these bills,” she said.

She also complained that the bill she received had estimated water use.

Chappelle said the company did issue bills that were estimated based on previous usage. She said the estimated bills, as well as the variety of billing cycle lengths, were due to the staff’s focus on upgrading the software and getting water to customers.

“Everybody was focused on getting the connection to Farmington,” she said.

The company is now purchasing water from the city of Farmington through a pipeline.

Customer Patricia Prentiss echoed Brown’s concerns. She owns four properties on County Road 5590, as well as a property off of Southside River Road. Each of those properties was billed for a different amount of time. Prentiss said the house she lives in was billed for a 52-day period while another house she owns was billed for 14 days and, like Brown’s bill, she received an estimated bill for a vacant rental property.

This summer, she said she has tried to conserve water. She said she has been nervous about using water because she didn’t want to pay a high price for it.

“It’s pretty rough when you can’t afford to mop your floor,” she said.

originally posted on August 22, 2016

14:14. Lima, Aug. 22. It is “absolutely essential” for all Peruvians to have access to quality drinking water services, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski expressed on Monday.

By Jean d’Amour Mugabo, originally posted on August 2, 2016

“We last accessed clean water at the nearest taps when President Paul Kagame visited us on July 4th … … .,” she narrates

Walking by a number of lakes in Bugesera District in the morning hours of these school holidays, one can see children swimming as other children and adults climb up and down the hills fetching water from the same lakes. It’s weird!

Wondering what people use that water for, people with jerry cans in their hands will tell you they are collecting water to be used in home activities such as preparing meals, washing the dishes while others shockingly say that it’s their drinking water.

As we, a group of journalists-members of Pax Press (a local NGO), travelled to Rweru Sector for leader-community debates, we called at a small lake in Gashora Sector after seeing swimmers and fetchers in the same lake.

Residents recounted a nightmare of accessing water, leave alone clean water, in the area. “We use this water for everything though you see these children swimming in it. We use it to cook and it is often our drinking water because the clean water taps are very far from home. I walk for an hour to reach this lake but it takes more than an hour and a half walking to the clean water tap,” said a woman holding a jerrycan to fetch water from Rwanda Rushya Lake in Gashora Sector.

She added that they had received clean water taps in her Kayovu Village of Mwenda Cell but taps stopped working two years ago.

“We suffer different diseases like flu, cough, worms, and typhoid as result of this dirty water. We wish the government provides clean water for us,” she pleaded.

Water is an expensive merchandise

While it is usual to buy a 20-litre jerrycan of water at Rw100 in many parts of the country, the same jerry can cost as high as Rwf300 in Rweru Sector, Bugesera Disrtict.

“20 litres of clean water cost Rwf300 and it is rare to find it here. I sell the same quantity for Rwf200 because I fetch it from a lake which is farther, having water which is not as dirty as water of Gaharwa Lake which is nearby,” said one Nyamagabe, adding that the very dirty water from Gaharwa Lake costs Rwf100 per 20 litres.

Emmanuel Serugendo, another water seller in Batima Cell, Rweru Sector, said that it is hard to fetch water from the so-called nearest lake if one does not own a bicycle.

“We have many clients for this water because many people cannot reach the lake. I sell 30 jerry cans per day. A 20-litre jerry can costs Rwf100 and water is used for everything even drinking. We sell all these jerry cans you see and go to fetch more,” he said, adding that he earns at least Rwf2,000 per day in selling water.

Elderly Jeanne Mukakimenyi said she sometimes sleeps hungry and spends two days without taking a descent shower for failing to buy water as she does not have any child to walk miles to the lake.

“Government should save us by supplying water to these taps. I usually pay Rwf100 for 20 litres of unclean water collected from the lake and it causes us diseases. We last accessed clean water at the nearest taps when President Paul Kagame visited us on July 4th ,” she said.

Jean Christophe Rwabuhihi, the executive secretary of Rweru Sector, said that water shortage is a general problem in the entire district and encouraged residents to harvest rain water and use is sparingly.

“We have water infrastructure here but water is very rarely available. We have installed six water tanks in the sector this year and they will help collecting rain water to be used during dry season. However, the government is working on a sustainable solution to have abundant water by December, next year.” he said.

WASAC Working on sustainable solution

Speaking to The Rwanda Focus, Vedaste Tuyisenge, the Bugesera branch manager for Water and Sanitation Corporation (WASAC), said the water shortage in the district is due to insufficient production capacity, adding that WASAC is working on expanding the production.

“We have the installed capacity for water production of 3,600m3 per day while the district needs at least 12,000m3 . We are working on the expansion of Ngenda water plant and a new plant is under construction. The two projects will add 3,500m3 to the current daily production by April, next year,” he said.

Tuyisenge said that each of the 15 sectors of the district is supplied with water two days per two weeks and water takes two days in pipes from the pump to the farthest areas like Rweru because of the flat nature of the area’s altitude, slowing down water movement.

Statistics from WASAC indicate that the national access to clean water is at 76%, while the government seeks to reach 100% clean water supply, in the entire country, by 2020.

Among the projects to meet that target, include Bugesera and Mutobo water plants, each with a capacity to produce 40,000 cubic metres per day.

By Will Sarni, originally posted on August 2, 2016

Imagine if everyone had access to water quantity and quality data on a real-time or near-real-time basis.

I believe we are getting closer as a result of access to technology and catalyzed by a pressing need from the private and public sectors, along with civil society.

The “democratization of water data” is not only timely but essential if we are to move from 19th century water policies and 20th century infrastructure to 21st century solutions.

We are still challenged to deliver safe drinking water to everyone. A few statistics frame the challenge: globally, 884 million people worldwide don’t have regular access to safe drinking water; 2.4 billion people lack improved sanitation facilities resulting in about 842,000 deaths per year, of which 361,000 are children under age 5.

In the U.S., an estimated 1 million to 3 million people don’t have access to safe drinking water and almost 2,000 water systems (or about 6 million people) were tested for lead concentrations exceeding U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards, according to USA Today.

What would democratizing water quantity and quality data facilitate? The potential to provide the following benefits.

• Public sector with integrated (local, state, regional and national scale) water data to drive innovative public policy decisions.
• Civil society (homeowners and anyone with a mobile phone) with the ability to access data without the need to rely upon public sector databases, utilities and agencies.
• Investors with access to data to make more informed decisions (imagine having the same confidence in water data that we do with financial data?) on investments in 21 st century infrastructure — “smarter” centralized, distributed and decentralized systems.
• Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with water data so they are better equipped to drive collective action initiatives within watersheds, regions and nationally.
• Opportunities for cross industry collaboration on addressing the energy-water-food nexus challenges.
• Entrepreneurs with the ability to understand market failures and business opportunities in areas such as treatment technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT).

How do we get there? Several trends are driving this move towards democratizing access to water data.

The first and most obvious is the accelerating adoption of smart phones and access to the internet. To illustrate these trends, in Africa, by 2019, there will be 930 million people with cell phones, of which three-quarters will have internet access and 50 percent of the world’s population will be online by 2018.

The second trend that is emerging in the U.S. is a recognition that the public sector must do better to provide access to local, state and federal databases. The recent White House Moonshot for water and roundtable discussions on open access to data illustrate this trend.

These first two trends are, in turn, mobilizing entrepreneurs (in particular those outside of the water sector) to develop innovative technology solutions to address water quantify and quality. Water technology hubs and accelerators such as ImagineH2O, the Global Water Center, WaterStart and WaterTAP are bringing entrepreneurs together to address water challenges.

Finally, we need to more actively engage civil society through education and awareness of the challenges we face in ensuring adequate water for economic development, business growth and social and ecosystem well-being.

All of these trends will move us towards the goal of universal access to water data to accelerate solutions to universal and equitable access to water.

by Fox 4 Newsroom, originally posted on July 25, 2016

ALTAMONT, Mo. — “You don’t understand what you got until you lose it,” one resident said.

Three towns in northwest Missouri have been without water since Friday.

Hundreds of Altamont, Weatherby, and Winston residents have had to forego bathing, washing dishes, and getting drinking water from the tap when their water went dry.

FOX 4’s Monica Evans went to the affected towns to find out how the folks in the two counties are coping, and what’s being done to get the water flowing again.

Residents said it’s been a rough few days dealing with the heat without water. Volunteers spent Monday passing out bottled water to people in Davies and Dekalb Counties.

Altamont’s mayor Tessa Lollar said the town’s water tower, which normally stores enough water for four days, went dry when an air pocket got into the water line.

“What had happened when it became air-locked, it would become like a big suction or a vacuum, and it actually had pulled water from our tower,” Lollar said.

Air in the line to the Pattonsburg Water District, which supplies water to Altamont, Weatherby, and Winston, caused the water to drain out of their towers.

Lollar said the heat and added to the hardship of going without water, especially for the town’s more vulnerable residents.

“It has been very hard for residents. I mean, you know, as you know we are under a heat advisory. It’s very hot. You know, you have elderly, you have disabled,” she said.

Lollar said the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) delivered truck loads of water Sunday night, and Monday. Another shipment is expected on Tuesday.

“When they showed up with this, we was really thankful so we decided to help,” resident Kenneth Baldwin said.

Baldwin delivered water to people in rural areas, while another resident, Randy Turner, took the day off work to help out too.

“I decided to get my crew running and take the day off to help the community. To make sure water is dispersed to people that need it,” Turner said.

County commissioners said the water is currently back on, but it’s only a trickle. Officials said they expect the water to be fully restored in 48 hours. After that, a boil order will be in place until further notice.

India’s ambitious sanitation drive has created a health hazard, with many toilets built cheek by jowl with family water supplies

by Priyanka Pulla in Puri, originally posted on July 25, 2016

June in Odisha state’s Puri district, and the mercury is hitting 39C. The monsoon is still days away but, when it comes, the Mahanadi river could flood low-lying villages, as it often has done. One such village is Aaruha, a network of congested huts surrounded by vast rice fields.

Chaibi Swain, 52, lives here with her husband, a rice farmer. Her home is little different to the rest of Aaruha’s low-rise dwellings, but it has a toilet, which puts her among a small minority in rural Odisha. Eight out of nine people in Odisha’s villages do not use toilets, instead defecating in the open, leaving them vulnerable to diseases. The Swains, with their tiny toilet, which empties into a leach pit – a hole in the ground used to compost faeces when there is no sewage system – are the face of progress.

There is a problem, however. The leach pit is next to the household’s drinking-water source, a tube well. Water so close to a leach pit is vulnerable to contamination from faecal germs, since bacteria, viruses and protozoa can travel through soil. Worse, when the monsoon comes and the Mahanadi overruns its banks, the groundwater levels in Aaruha rise, making the contamination worse. The Swains’ toilet could actually be a health risk.

They aren’t the only ones whose backyard toilet is a threat to the water supply. As the Swachch Bharat Mission (SBM) – India’s ambitious campaign to stop open defecation by 2019 – gains pace, about 1.3m leach-pit toilets have been built in Odisha alone.

In districts such as Ganjam, Balasore and Puri, these pits are often built without safeguards against contamination, say the NGOs working with the government. “It is quite alarming, because if this problem is not addressed at this time, we are building sites of contamination all around,” says Devdeep Saha, a research associate at the sanitation NGO Friend in Need Trust.

The safeguards in coastal districts such as Puri, which have high groundwater tables and are prone to flooding, include keeping a 10-metre distance between water sources and leach pits, raising the top of pits above the ground so that flood water does not enter, and sealing the bottom of pits to prevent pathogens escaping. But villagers who build their own toilets in return for funds from the mission often ignore these safeguards.

The reasons are many. First, many households in congested villages do not have the space to build toilets and tube wells far apart. Harendranath Pradhan, a government sanitation engineer in Odisha’s Balasore district, says this is the main reason for guidance being ignored. Even though his job is to ensure toilets are properly built, Pradhan says this isn’t always possible. “We tell the beneficiary to maintain a distance from the water source. But they say they don’t have the land. So we build the toilet, because we have to meet targets,” he says.

India is not yet meeting its mission goals. Only about 19m toilets have been built across rural India, meaning another 92m are needed over the next three years to meet the 2019 target. Vivek Sabnis, who previously worked for the Bangalore-based sanitation NGO Arghyam, says: “Unfortunately, everybody is pushing for quantity over quality.”

Odisha isn’t the only state that faces a threat to its water supplies from new toilets. Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand also have badly built toilets, according to Saha. This means that, as coverage grows, contamination may worsen.

A study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology in April found that certain diarrhoea-causing protozoa can travel 150 metres or more in the high groundwater of Puri to contaminate even deep tube wells, which are thought safer than shallow tube wells and open ponds. The study says full latrine coverage in high water table areas would reduce contamination in open ponds, but increase it in tube wells.

Marion Jenkins, lead author of the study and an environmental health researcher at the University of California in Davis, says recommended safeguards may reduce contamination a little, but won’t eliminate it. “Drinking-water aquifers are already seriously polluted with faecal protozoal pathogens from the existing stock of latrines in rural Puri,” she says.

This means that unless the existing latrines are pulled down, and new ones built differently, pollution will remain.

Another study, published in January, found tube wells in Bihar to be contaminated by faecal pathogens about 18% of the time, when they weren’t far enough from pit toilets. This study was done in summer, and the authors predict contamination would increase during monsoon.

None of this means India should panic and abandon pit toilets, says Sandy Cairncross, an environmental health researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Improved toilet coverage is likely to benefit people much more than it hurts them, he points out, adding that it would be better to provide piped water to villages, instead of relying on tube wells and ponds.

Another solution is to train villagers to monitor the quality of their toilets, instead of relying on government officials to do so, says Sujoy Mojumdar, a former SBM director who is now with Unicef India. The system of a government official inspecting toilets before disbursing money doesn’t work because toilet users do not feel ownership, he argues. Village teams already exist in some states, he says, “but it is still a rare example and not widespread”.