Safe Drinking Water Still An Issue
by Kota Sriraj, originally posted on March 31, 2016
India is home to the world’s highest number of people without clean water. It is crucial for the Government to provide better management and conservation of water by concentrating on developing energy-efficient desalination plants
As water scarcity assumes serious proportions, the availability of safe drinking water too is fast becoming a mirage. The World Health Organisation states that a person needs 50 litres per day as the recommended “intermediate” quantity to maintain health, hygiene and for all domestic uses. However, currently more than 650 million people across the world do not even have basic access to the recommended quantity of water. This has had a telling impact on their health, besides adversely affecting their income and productivity.
According to the latest report published on March 21, by international NGO, WaterAid, on the state of world’s water resources, financially challenged people of the developing world are suffering the most. The lack of safe water at home requires people to buy the recommended 50 litres a day, but since most of the people survive on four dollar per day, purchasing water puts enormous strain on their meagre domestic budgets.
The report also highlights that peoples predicament is mainly due to the lack of money, dearth of political will to remedy the situation and the general inability of the Government to deliver amidst deep prevailing societal inequalities.
With more than 75 million people deprived of sufficient water, India is one of the top most countries where the highest number of people live without access to safe water. India is followed by China where more than 66 million people are living in the same condition. The aquifers in India currently cater to 85 per cent of the drinking water needs, but off late nearly 56 per cent of the country is witnessing a fall in aquifer levels.
This condition is aggravated by the rampant use of hand-pumps that are fast depleting the already shallow aquifers. These circumstances are contributing to the dwindling water resources, resulting in millions of people having no access to quality drinking water. This is also causing communities to rely on a single or distant source for drinking water, often leading to disputes and increased discrimination against the main water fetchers like women and girls.
Given this situation, the Government needs to urgently step in and provide better management and conservation of water resources. This will help people even in the remotest part of India to get access to safe drinking water. Primarily, there is an urgent need to change water consumption patterns by changing the lifestyles and behaviour of people towards this precious natural resource.
Besides this, the Government must also assign responsibilities to capable technical institutions to invent and to deploy new water conservation technologies. These techno-inventions can be theme-based, such as technology solutions for aquifer recharge or for faster wastewater recycling.
Countries such as Singapore are already moving towards excellence in wastewater recycling and are considered as leaders in developing advanced technology that cleanses wastewater for other uses, including drinking.
In its effort to have a comprehensive water resource strategy, the Government must include initiatives for agriculture. Nearly 70 per cent of worlds fresh water is used for agriculture and in India too, irrigation uses up majority of the freshwater resources.
Efficient techniques of irrigation, coupled with wastewater utilisation for farm uses can enable cutback on freshwater use. As an additional measure, the Government can also explore an appropriate increase in the price of water supply; this might influence consumer behaviour positively and prevent wastage and pollution.
In order to efficiently move towards a water secure future, it is crucial for the Government to concentrate on developing energy efficient desalination plants. The current plants are energy intensive and have prohibitive operational costs.
Saudi Arabia is setting a much-needed example by experimenting with solar powered desalination plant, India can follow the suit and adopt suitable technologies for its desalination plants. Any effort to bring about a quantum change is incomplete without community involvement and participation and the initiative to develop a comprehensive water resources strategy is no different. The authorities must include all stakeholders in order to arrive at a sustainable solution that is driven by community based governance and partnerships.
Access to safe drinking water is the right of everyone but thanks to the threats posed by population and pollution the once abundant fresh water resources are now witnessing a tug of war between ever increasing demand and dwindling supply.
The Government needs to adopt an efficient strategy that seeks to protect and conserve our water resources so that a water secure future is ensured.
Gov’t and NGO seek to expand access to water
by Igor Kossov, originally published on March 28, 2016
As the Kingdom grapples with water shortages, the Ministry of Rural Development and NGO Plan International have set a goal to bring clean water sources to 60 per cent of Cambodia’s 12 million rural residents by 2018.
According to a 2014 economic survey, 47 per cent of rural Cambodians had access to clean drinking water.
The ministry’s water department president, Mao Saray, revealed the focus on increasing that number at a Saturday speech at the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Center.
Plan International water specialist Hang Hy Bonna explained that officials made five action plans after a recent policy review.
He praised the willingness to act, saying that the ministry can sometimes be too passive.
“They need to take action, not wait for their development partners,” he said.
The plans include creating more water-treatment facilities and teaching communities about protecting water against contamination from chemicals or animal droppings.
They also include more partnerships with the private sector to find a replacement for hand-pumped wells, which are the predominant way of getting water in Cambodia but are frequently broken, Bonna said.
Finally, they will work on setting up a small local committee of three to five people for each well and water source, to resolve problems faster.
The ministry was not available for comment yesterday.
Bengaluru gets clean water to drink at Rs5
New water kiosks can supply 14,000 litres of water a day, and can cater to a population of 10,000 to 30,000 people in a neighbourhood
-by Nidheesh M.K., originally published on March 27, 2016
Bengaluru: A woman in a crumpled red sari stood in the noonday sun outside a water kiosk in Bengaluru, one of the hundreds Bengaluru’s municipal corporation is planning to open in the coming months.
The initiative is an attempt to solve a perennial problem that many of the Indian cities are trying to address—to provide access to clean, cheap water with the technology know-how provided by Waterhealth, a US-based firm that works in the delivery of clean drinking water.
The initiative is in partnership with Jaldhaara Foundation, the implementing agency of this drive and Tata Trust, which is financing the first 15 centres in Bengaluru.
According to a report by international charity Water Aid, released on 22 March, India has the world’s highest number of people without access to clean water—imposing a major financial burden on people.
The report says 75.8 million Indians, or 5% of the country’s 1.25 billion population, are forced to either buy water at high rates or use supplies that are contaminated with sewage or chemicals.
In cities like Bengaluru, which the Census 2011 called the fastest growing urban area in the country, rapid urbanization coupled with rising pollution levels and shrinking resources have led to a situation where water has become more scarce as well as polluted, say urban experts.
For instance, the woman in the red sari says earlier she had to depend on piped water distribution networks, and the choice she had was either no water or polluted water.
Now this water kiosk will provide her with water just outside her home in a poor lower middle class neighbourhood near the city’s main bus stand, Majestic. WaterHealth is planning to build such kiosks in all of Bengaluru’s 198 wards, from the current and another 50 in the rest of Karnataka within the next 12 months.
These kiosks can supply as much as 14,000 litres of water a day, and can cater to a population of almost 10,000 to 30,000 people in a neighbourhood. The water is priced at Rs.5 for 20 litres, says Vikas Shah, chief operation officer, WaterHealth India.
We have found high levels of contamination in the water in Bengaluru, said Shah. For example, the permissible levels of iron content is 1 ppm (parts per million), but in Bengaluru it ranges from 2-7 ppm, he said.
To be sure, the more immediate problem affecting Bengaluru is acute scarcity of water and its inequal distribution.
Bengaluru consumes 1,800 million litres (MLD) of water per day, according to the Karnataka government. The city gets water almost 24×7, and the supply is augmented by about 400,000 tubewells in the city. However, people in the hinterland aren’t as fortunate.
Farmers have been protesting for the past five months in the city’s northern suburbs like Kolar and Chikballapur. In the first week of March, 10,000-odd farmers from the area showed up on tractors in Bengaluru to protest against the extreme inequity in drinking water distribution.
In North Karnataka, the scarcity has increased due to poor rainfall last year, the worst in nearly half a century. The next monsoon is almost four months away and water crisis has peaked in many regions in the south Indian state that declared 28 of its 30 districts drought-hit last August.
Also, the kiosks will depend on borewells for its operation. Even as Waterhealth claims to discharge back much of this water back to nature after treatment, doubts remain about the efficacy of any solution that relies on groundwater in a city with nearly 400,000 tubewells, all of them unregulated.
As a result of high exploitation, the depth of fresh groundwater has increased from 33 ft in the 1990s to 132 ft in 2015, according to data from the Karnataka Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Board, which the government has admitted is a worrying phenomenon.
The 14,000 litres the kiosks can provide also depends on enough electricity supplied through the power utility. The initiative comes at a time when Bengaluru is facing a power crisis that results in long hours of power cuts.
Which is why the woman in the crumpled red sari had to go back with an empty pot, because by the time she got her chance at the water kiosk, the discharge had gone off as the power had gone in the area.
Haiti – Social : Drinking water in Port-au-Prince would require nearly $1 billion
originally posted on March 27, 2016
On the occasion of World Water Day (March 22), the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB) in partnership with the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID $65 million) and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries (OPEC $6.6 million) announced the making available for Haiti of $160 million to contribute to the fight against the lack of access to drinking water in the country.
An assistance certainly appreciated, but not enough to end the lack of access to clean water in Port-au-Prince according to Benito Dumay, Director General of the National Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation (DINEPA) who said that the current daily capacity of water supply for the capital is 100,000 m3 while the needs exceed the 300,000 m3.
To permanently satisfy the demand of the population of Port-au-Prince, DINEPA needs 800 to $ 900 million to complete the necessary infrastructure, says Benito Dumay based on internal studies.
Flint water pipes could be fixed by May, unknown when residents can drink water
by Gary Ridley, originally published on March 25, 2016
FLINT, MI – Environmental regulators estimate lead should stop leaching from the city’s damaged pipes by May 1, but there is still no word on when all Flint residents will be able to safely drink the water without filters.
The May 1 date was released in a Friday, March 25, letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency approving the state’s request to extend a presidential emergency declaration for Flint and Genesee County.
The extension will last until Aug. 14.
The letter, sent from FEMA Associate Administrator Elizabeth Zimmerman, said Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Environmental Protection Agency officials determined the rescaling of the city’s water pipes to prevent lead from leaching into the water supply is estimated to be completed by May 1.
However, the letter also states that health officials recommend residents only drink filtered or bottled water until the water is deemed safe for human consumption without having to use a filter.
The letter state that could take upward of three months, but Gov. Rick Snyder’s office, which announced the extension, said the decision to issue an all-clear on the city’s water will not be based on a calendar date.
The extension authorizes federal supplies of bottled water, water filters, replacement cartridges and test kits for another four months.
“With this federal assistance, much-needed resources will continue to be available to Flint residents while this crisis exists,” Snyder said in a statement announcing the extension. “We are working diligently with local, state and federal partners to ensure the people of Flint have access to quality drinking water at their homes as soon as possible.”
An emergency was declared Jan. 16 by President Barack Obama after elevated blood lead levels were discovered in some Flint children after the city changed its water source from Lake Huron water purchased from the Detroit water system to the Flint River in April 2014, a decision made while the city was being run by a state-appointed emergency manager.
State regulators didn’t require the river water be treated to make it less corrosive, causing lead from plumbing and pipes to leach into the city’s water supply.
Even though the city reconnected to the Detroit water system in October, local and state officials have warned pregnant women and young children against using the water unless it has been tested because lead levels continue to exceed what can be handled by a filter.
Obama’s initial declaration had a time limit of 90 days, but State Police Capt. Chris A. Kelenske, deputy state director of emergency management and homeland security, requested the extension on March 14.
The FEMA letter stated no further extensions would be granted.
Officials have been hesitant on placing a timeline on when they believe the city’s water will be considered safe.
Since Jan. 9, the state says it has provided more than 543,500 cases of water, 110,500 water filters and 42,800 water testing kits in response to the water crisis.
Editorial: Is Sandbranch about to get running water?
originally published on March 2016
Most of us who have been around Dallas County for a while thought we’d never see the day.
Could running tap water finally be on the way to the tiny Dallas County community of Sandbranch? We’ve seen promising signs this week that it just might.
Imagine waking up in the morning and not being able to take a shower or get a drink of water from the faucet. That’s what’s been happening in Sandbranch for more than a decade.
We’re not sure what caused the course correction, but we suspect the horrors of what’s happened in Flint, Mich., may have something to do with it. That much-publicized public-health crisis over tainted water was bad news for everybody involved, from the victims taken ill to government officials who failed to snap to the problem.
But there’s more good news. Because Sandbranch, an unincorporated community in the county’s southeastern corner, is now part of a development and water supply corporation, it can receive grant money for engineers and water infrastructure and to buy water from the city of Dallas. Federal grants could also be used to fix up properties.
Those are the most significant developments in 30 years.
Figuring out how to help Sandbranch has been a struggle. Only about 100 people still live there. The community once relied on well water, but the water became contaminated and the county helped relocate dozens of residents more than a decade ago.
Bringing water and sewer service to the area will cost millions, expenses that officials had been reluctant to pay. They’d been cautious about using taxpayer dollars there, especially while FEMA opposed the project.
But that was then and this is now, says County Judge Clay Jenkins. Having residents who live in our community in 2016 without the basic necessity of safe drinking water from the tap is “unacceptable.”
He’s right. We applaud Jenkins and the collaboration of federal, state and local officials who helped pull this together. As Jenkins points out, federal money goes to such projects around the country; securing some for Sandbranch is no different.
“We can’t pick which neighborhoods deserve access to clean water and which neighborhoods don’t,” he said.
It will still take months before the water is flowing, but in the meantime we applaud the progress.
Settlement Allocates Funds To Replace Flint’s Water Lines
Now an update on the water crisis in Flint, Mich. A federal court has approved a settlement of a significant lawsuit over the lead-tainted water in that city.
The deal doesn’t put money in people’s pockets, but it should help heal the city’s broken water system.
STEVE CARMODY, BYLINE: Flint officials have planned for months now to replace 18,000 lead and galvanized service lines over the next three years.
CARMODY: Under the settlement, Michigan will set aside $97 million to replace the pipes that are a primary source of lead in Flint’s drinking water.
She’s not impressed by the settlement.
CARMODY: Other people here are upset that the deal will allow the state to end bottled water distribution in Flint if lead levels trend below federal limits.
For more than a year, city residents have gone to distribution centers scattered around the city to pick up cases of bottled water and filters.
But few here trust anything the state says, though they may soon have to pay for bottled water themselves.
Michael Steinberg is the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.
For NPR News, I’m Steve Carmody in Flint.
Thirst Aid: To one community living in the parched hinterlands of the Navajo Nation, Darlene Arviso provides water— and a wellspring of hope.
Half-listening, she pulls out a weathered clipboard and begins committing to paper her mental records from the morning’s deliveries: P. Yazzie – 1,200. D. Yazzie – 165. J.V. – 55. O.M. – 275. E. Long – 55.
Math was her favorite subject in school; numbers always clicked for her. With the deliveries she’s made so far, she calculates that there’s still enough in the truck’s 3,500-gallon tank to visit six more houses before she has to turn back for her afternoon school bus shift.
A muffled clatter draws her eyes from the clipboard, prompting her to peek at the side-view mirror. She laughs and jumps out. The trailer home’s owner, Benjamin Lewis, has commandeered the water hose. Darlene ambles over, teasing him good-naturedly in Navajo. Dressed in jeans, a striped button-up shirt, and a cream-colored cowboy hat, the 68-year-old Vietnam veteran cracks a grin and shouts, “I wish I could stay young like this forever!”
Benjamin grew up nearby on the reservation and remembers trekking a mile each way, at least twice a week, to a windmill-powered well with his siblings and the neighbors’ kids. Someone would push a wheelbarrow filled with empty containers. “It was kind of fun,” he recalls. They enjoyed playing in the area around the windmill. When they got tired of horsing around, the kids would fill the containers and push them back to the house, leaving them outside on a wooden bench for communal use.
Since he moved to his current home in 1998, Benjamin has been waiting for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority to put in a new water line. Baca Chapter, the division of the Navajo Nation that governs this area, installed a septic tank for his bathroom, but he had to haul water from a nearby windmill-powered well for it to work. He used to fill his drinking barrels there too, until he found a sign posted on the well warning that the unregulated, untreated water had tested positive for uranium (a vestige of the area’s now shuttered mining industry), coliform bacteria, and nitrates from livestock waste.
Benjamin wasn’t surprised. “There’s a lot of other windmills besides the one here that I know have been contaminated. Just about almost every windmill out here, you can see signs on.”
He could have gotten water at his mom’s house, a little over 8 miles to the north, but he would have only been able to carry small containers. After seeing the yellow truck out for delivery, he approached Darlene and asked to be added to her route. Now Benjamin has relied on her to supply water for the past two years.
Workers from the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority showed up on Benjamin’s property with a backhoe last year, and he was hopeful they would move ahead with the new water line. Instead, they only dug a shallow hole that they covered up again before the end of the day. The ground was too hard, they explained, and regulations forbade them from using dynamite to break through it. They promised to return with different equipment. That was last summer. He hasn’t heard a word since.
“I’m well-set here,” Benjamin says. “Really, I don’t have anything to complain about but the water. But one of these days I’ll get it. With the coming spring, I’ll probably have running water.”
When Darlene was growing up on the reservation, her family didn’t have an indoor tap. At least once a week they hauled their barrels several miles to fill them at their church’s well. She and her sisters washed their hair only on Sundays and Thursdays. When doing the dishes, they would save the rinse water for washing the next round. She remembers her grandfather, a medicine man who made the family’s moccasins, frequently chastising her and her siblings, “You need to save the water!”
She graduated from Thoreau High School and settled nearby after marrying a ranch hand, Tom, who had also grown up on the Navajo Nation. The couple worked hard to provide for their family—four kids, plus Darlene’s mom, grandmother, and several nieces and nephews. Back then, Darlene was a self-employed jewelry maker, crafting earrings and other pieces out of silver.
As the kids got older, though, she grew tired of being a silversmith. In 2002, she told Tom she wanted to work as a school bus driver. He went with her to an employment office, where she signed up to earn her commercial driver’s license. Driving home, the future looked bright.
But one week before her test, a horse fell on top of Tom while he was training it, and he died of his injuries. Their oldest child had just graduated from high school; their youngest was 8. The burden of providing for the family rested squarely on Darlene’s shoulders.
She took a job driving a water truck for an Albuquerque, New Mexico–based construction company, which laid her off after a few months. She went to a similar job at another company, only to be laid off again.
Between Darlene’s unemployment benefits, her eldest daughter’s income as a heavy machinery operator, the younger children’s survivors’ benefits, and the extra cash that her two sons brought in chopping and selling firewood, the family cobbled together a living. “We had our own house—all we needed was to pay for water, electricity, and propane for cooking. We made it through,” she says. It was a difficult, frustrating time, “but there were more blessings.”
She knew that St. Bonaventure Indian Mission offered help to people in the community, including house repairs, food, clothing, and utility assistance, “but I thought it was for people who really needed help.”
It wasn’t until the family couldn’t pay their electric bill that she finally went to ask for assistance. While filling out the paper-work, she gave her CDL to the receptionist, who immediately called executive director Chris Halter.
A new diesel-powered Chevy C8500 had arrived just one month earlier. It was custom-fitted with a food grade water tank, as well as a special suspension system designed to mitigate the wear and tear brought on by the reservation’s rocky terrain. But Chris hesitated to send it out for delivery. “I needed someone to take care of this water truck and make it last for a long time.” Watching how roughly his drivers—all men—handled the old truck and the mission’s other vehicles convinced him that St. Bonaventure needed a female driver.
So Chris told his staff to pass along the word about the opening to any female truck drivers they knew. And then Darlene walked in. “I thought, She’s precisely what I’m looking for,” he recalls. He hired her the next day.
After eight years she still finds the work deeply rewarding—it resonates with the values of her Navajo upbringing and her Christian faith. “Plus I know how it is to have no water,” she says, “so I want to help.”
Today, everyone in the community knows Darlene as the Water Lady, waving when they pass on remote stretches of road and coming out to chat when she arrives at their home. The staff at St. Bonaventure calls her their eyes and ears—and her help isn’t limited to water delivery.
If someone’s roof is wearing out, Darlene tells the mission to dispatch a repair crew to the residence. If a household needs lamp oil or warm clothing or nonperishable food, she drops by the next time she’s in the area. She often spends extra time visiting with the elderly, filling them in on their kids’ lives or just listening when they want to talk. “Sometimes, if they’re sick and need prayer, I’ll pray with them,” she says.
When she stops by the gas station one morning for a cup of coffee, she runs into a young man whose mother passed away two years ago. Darlene knows he’s been struggling lately, and she offers encouragement and kind words in Navajo.
Back in the truck minutes later, she says, “I’m everybody’s auntie, sister, mom … ”
The number of homes with indoor taps has grown at a plodding pace, and rocky land isn’t the only obstacle. Some people live on land so remote that connecting a house to the existing infrastructure would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, an expense that neither residents nor their chapters can come close to affording.
People can purchase bottled drinking water at the gas station or the Dollar General, but it’s too expensive to buy what a family needs for everyday cleaning and cooking. Some visit coin-operated filling stations in the cities of Crownpoint or Gallup, lugging barrels, tanks, and buckets up to 100 miles round-trip.
St. Bonaventure has an on-site well with a free public spigot, but people are asked to self-limit how much they take home. “You got to look out for the next person,” says office manager Cindy Howe. But hauling water, whether from the city or from the mission, requires transportation—and the strength to lift the full barrels and jugs (5 gallons weighs 40 pounds). For the elderly and the rural poor, delivery is the only option.
Thankfully, St. Bonaventure has help. The mission is collaborating with DigDeep, a Los Angeles–based nonprofit focused on defending the human right to water. Before the partnership with St. Bonaventure, called the Navajo Water Project, DigDeep helped build infrastructure exclusively in Africa. Executive director George McGraw, who studied international law at the United Nations’ University for Peace, was shocked—and embarrassed—when, in 2012, he found out about the conditions on the reservation.
Until he heard from a donor who had visited the Navajo Nation on a mission trip, George hadn’t known that there were people living without running water in the United States. According to the most recent American Community Survey, one-half of one percent of households in the U.S.—about 1.6 million people—lack complete indoor plumbing systems. DigDeep is working to change that, beginning with the Navajo Water Project.
“There are three problems that we’re solving on the reservation,” George says. “First, our current clients aren’t getting enough water. Second, they’re keeping it in barrels, buckets, pickle jars, cups—whatever can hold it. Finally, there are more potential clients that we need to hook up to the project, and the whole system needs to be made more efficient in order to be able to serve them.”
So far, they’ve procured another water truck—which was retrofitted with a new engine and a food-grade tank—and a second driver, allowing St. Bonaventure to double the monthly deliveries. Last November, the next phase began: installing in-home water systems complete with 1,200-gallon underground cisterns, sinks, showers, and electric water heaters. The goal is to equip 205 households by the end of 2018. By far the costliest and most complicated objective is still in the works: drilling a new well at Smith Lake. If all goes according to plan, construction will be underway by March or April, and clients could receive clean Smith Lake water as early as mid-2016.
Eventually the goal is to get running water into all the houses, but realistically that’s a very long-term aim. “I think that, as much as I’d like to say we’ll phase out the water truck in my lifetime, we won’t,” says Chris, who’s 48.
Darlene will continue delivering to every household on the list. She’ll also keep driving the old truck. “This one has air conditioning,” she says with a sly smile.
In the scant shade of a scrawny tree, Darlene peers inside a blue barrel. “That one’s still dirty.” The small plastic caps used to plug the barrels’ openings tend to go missing, letting in bugs and wind-borne debris.
Holding the hose over the barrel, Darlene grips the nozzle’s red handle and releases a gushing stream. She gives the container a swirl and, after dumping out the dirty water, discovers something at the bottom. Tipping the barrel over, she reaches in and pulls out a piece of red garden hose used as a siphon. She hangs it from a tree branch
“Hi!”
Darlene turns at the sound of the young voice to see two boys, 8 and 7, who’ve ventured out of the house at the end of the lot.
She knows the kids well; she brought water here to their grandmother before the grandmother passed away and the boys’ parents moved onto the land. “I took out the hose,” Darlene tells them.
“My mom says the barrel was dirty,” the older kid says, drawing closer. His brother hangs back, observing silently but curiously.
“I cleaned it,” Darlene says. She chats with them about school—they have the day off for Columbus Day—asking where they go, even though she already knows the answer. Then she asks if they have
anything else for her to fill. The two kids disappear into a nearby hogan—an eight-sided house built in traditional Navajo style—and return with an empty 1-gallon apple juice jug. Darlene fills it up at the spigot on the side of the truck. The brothers thank her and turn back toward their house, carrying the now heavy bottle between them.
Back in the driver’s seat, Darlene glances in her side-view mirror and catches sight of the boys pumping their fists. She obliges and honks the horn, laughing as their faces disappear from view.
Water Market System in Balqa, Zarqa, & Informal Settlements of Amman & the Jordan Valley
by Thomas Wildman, originally published on March 2013
As the Syrian conflict enters its third year, the influx of refugees into neighboring countries continues to rise exponentially. In Jordan there are currently over 540,000 refugees, 75% of whom are residing in host communities dispersed across the country. Of these, most are in rented accommodation, whereas some are in informal tented settlements. Both groups face significant challenges in meeting their needs due to limited income and high costs. The refugee influx is placing increasing pressure on service provision and infrastructure, including the already-strained water supply system, and contributing to problems like skin infections and increased tensions with host communities.
This EMMA assessment was planned and designed to inform an ECHO-funded project, Humanitarian Response and Assistance for People Affected by the Syrian Crisis, by analyzing water access and the water market in the pre- and post-crisis contexts, as well as during the winter and summer months in the current year.
The piped water network is the preferred option for bulk water for people living in Balqa and Zarqa. However, a lack of continuous 24 hour water supply through this system requires people to either store water or supplement their water needs through private water vendors. Drinking water is available for purchase at local shops that filter and bottle water and from private trucks (supplied from private commercial wells) at a rate that is 20-46 times higher than that of the piped network. Those with less capacity to store water, as well as those who live in areas that receive less frequent delivery of water through the pipe network, pay significantly more for water on a per capita basis. Demand for water is greatest in the summer and least in the winter. Meanwhile, those who live and work in informal settlements obtain some of their water from on-site wells or storage ponds, though most of this is low quality. The remainder of their water needs is purchased from private water trucks.
While water is available to meet the minimum needs of the targeted population, people’s access to water (particularly from May to September) depends primarily upon their purchasing power, geographic location, and water storage capacity. However, poor and very poor households struggle to access sufficient water because of their lack of purchasing power.
This report recommends supporting drinking water access through water vouchers linked to local water vendors and transporters, the provision of water filters at household level and increased water storage capacity for households as well as campaigns to promote water conservation and public health.
Water scarcity hits Kano, as residents resort to boreholes
Water scarcity hits Kano, as residents resort to boreholes.
For weeks, residents of Kano metropolis have been hit by acute water shortage, forcing them to resort to different measures to get what they now refer to as scarce commodity.
Previous administrations made several attempts to resolve the issue of perennial water scarcity often experienced in the ancient city during the dry season but to no avail.
Investigation by our reporter showed that majority of the residents of the city now live at the mercy of water vendors for their daily water supply irrespective of where they get the water from.
It was gathered that a 25-litre of water now costs N30 to N40 in some areas.
Chalawa and Tamburawa as well as Watari Water Works are the main water treatment plants that supply water to the metropolitan area made up of eight local government areas, namely Tarauni, Dala, Fagge, Kano Municipal, Gwale, Nassarawa, Ungoggo and Kumbotso with a population of 2,828,861 based on the 2006 population figure.
When contacted, the Managing Director of the Kano State Water Board, Engineer Auwalu Muhammad Galadanci, stated that Kano was facing water shortage right now as a result of an emergency renovation at Chalawa Water Works as a measure to boost the state water supply.
He said that for ages, the different water works in the state had been subjected to a lot of destruction by acts of some sand excavators, adding that their excavation activities had destroyed some of the water sources and rendered them ineffective.
“With the present on-going renovation, the issue of water scarcity in Kano will be minimized.
I want to urge the public to be patient as men of the board are working day and night to see that water supply improves.’’