BAGHDAD, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) — Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) said that up to 111,000 people were affected by contaminated water in Basra in southern Iraq, a local newspaper reported on Monday.
The IHCHR office late on Sunday asked the federal and the provincial governments to take "clear and serious" stance toward the water issue in Basra, the independent Azzaman newspaper quoted IHCHR report as saying.
"The deterioration of water continued as the high level of salinity is increasing, turning it to a heavy water," which increased the number of affected people to 111,000, the report said.
"Schoolchildren are among the victims who could have been poisoned in educational institutions," the report quoted Mahdi at-Tamimi, director of IHCHR office in Basra, as saying.
Meanwhile, Sayf al-Bader, the spokesman of the Iraqi health ministry, said that "the water supplied by the government-owned purification system is not ideal for drinking."
"The areas that are located far from the water purification plants may have up to zero Chlorine," al-Bader added.
Basra, the province’s capital city which bears the same name, has long witnessed protests among its over two million residents about the collapsing infrastructure, power cuts and corruption.
Water supply in the province is also widely criticized for high salinity, with dozens of thousands of residents having been hospitalized.
The protestors also accused the influential political parties of being behind the wide-spread corruption, which led to high unemployment and failure in rehabilitation of the country’s electricity, water and other basic services.

The students shared their thoughts and learned about how water gets to their own taps during a panel discussion with representatives of the Palmdale Water District.
“I didn’t know it came from Northern California,” eighth-grader Noah Jung said when asked what he discovered during the discussion.
The process of collecting snowmelt in Northern California and transporting it to Southern California is part of the state water project and the job of the Department of Water Resources, said Peter Thompson II, the district’s deputy water and energy resources director.
“What we get from the aqueduct changes every year, too,” Thompson said.
In addition to the state water, Palmdale Water District also relies on water collected behind the Littlerock Dam and groundwater pumped through wells.
Additionally, there is the issue of disposing of the salt that is removed in a manner that does not harm the environment.
Students also asked the panel how they found their way into a career in water.
For Corey Shere, a senior service worker who installs and repairs lines and other aspects of the water delivery system, working with water systems came out of an earlier career in construction.
He was working all over the country, including some jobs with water companies.
The Imagine a Day Without Water event was part of a partnership between the Palmdale Water District and the academy this year.

Although no problems have been reported, filters are being installed in all schools With water quality a growing concern throughout the country, the Alachua County Public Schools have begin installing water filters at all schools in the district.
The new water filters are designed remove lead and other contaminants from drinking water.
Monday, workers were in the process of installing close to 50 filters at various sinks and water fountains throughout Metcalfe Elementary School.
“I think it’s a very proactive stance the district is taking.
Additional lead can leach from pipes and fixtures through the system.
Lead exposure can have harmful effects for both young children and adults, though young children are more at risk of contamination.
Symptoms of potential lead poisoning include irritability and fatigue, abdominal pain, loss of hearing, developmental delay and learning disabilities.
They have a maximum useful life of one year.
Alachua County School District spokeswoman Jackie Johnson said district officials felt it was important to go ahead with the project to allay any concerns about drinking water.
“It’s an issue that concerns a lot of parents, a lot of folks,” Johnson said.

Thomas Esqueda, associate vice president of water and susainability at Fresno State and executive director of the California Water Institute discusses groundwater contamination and overpumping at the Arsenic Symposium at Fresno State on Oct. 11.
(Courtesy of Jordan College of Ag Sciences and Technology) The California Water Institute at Fresno State hosted the Arsenic Symposium, a community event focused on analyzing arsenic levels in groundwater.
Thomas Esqueda, Fresno State’s associate vice president of water and sustainability and the executive director of the California Water Institute, said the need for discussions about water infrastructure and safety is especially relevant in the San Joaquin Valley.
“Because we live in this environment where we are pretty much a rural area, the San Joaquin Valley, closely linked to ag, can’t grow food without water.
With the anticipated growth of the Valley’s population, Esqueda said it is vital to begin planning and implementing infrastructure that will supply safe, dependable water for the Valley.
“There’s no lack of water issues in the Valley.” Fresno State utilizes both public water supply wells as well as its own irrigation wells on the campus.
Esqueda said the two issues to focus on regarding water are the quality and the quantity of water in the Valley.
While the Arsenic Symposium addressed quality of water issues, a future event planned for January will discuss solutions concerning the Valley’s quantity of water.
The symposium took place one day after the fourth annual “Imagine a Day Without Water” events, for which Fresno State’s California Water Institute partnered with the city of Fresno, elected officials, water utilities and community leaders to raise awareness of the need for investing in the nation’s water infrastructure.
“People have to have food, and people have to have water.”

Craft-Turney representatives and representatives with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) held an informational meeting addressing people’s concerns following the "Do Not Use" order in Jacksonville.
The representatives spoke about what they could release, but many answers the community wanted were not able to be answered due to the investigation.
The room went from standing room only to less than half way full during the first hour of the meeting.
"We’re scared," Shelia Warren, a customer that’s been affected said, "I know it’s frustration but we’re scared because they won’t tell us the truth about what’s going on."
"We haven’t known where to go shower.
We don’t know where to go eat," she added.
The "Do Not Use" order has been lifted for the majority of those affected.
Warren says her biggest question is how long the contaminant was in the water before they were ever told.
Warren is concerned about her daughter-in-laws pregnancy since she ingested the water and how it will affect her unborn grandchild, not to mention her other grandchild.
It seems that many people, while understanding of jeopardizing the investigation, left the meeting more frustrated and with more questions than answers.

After the well-publicized departure of its previous Service Authority general manager, the county brought in Dan Hingley, who works for Aqua Virginia, a company that operates and services community water supplies.
County officials were elated that by August, state Department of Environmental Quality officials announced they were stepping back from the intense oversight they had engaged in for more than two years.
Now, the long-awaited turning of the page on past indiscretions appears to have taken place, though corrective measures are only beginning and the jury is still out on the quality of the water at the tap.
At a recent Service Authority board of directors meeting, a water customer brought in a nasty-looking water filter, one that he is instructed to change semi-annually, but changes monthly because it is necessary.
Despite the current confidence that water quality will soon improve, there is a reputation that will take time to clean up as well.
He’s already doing that by reining in the overuse of chemicals and seeking out serviceable used replacement parts rather than buying pricey new ones.
Hingley recently informed the Service Authority board that in 2017 alone, the county lost an estimated 76 million gallons of treated water due to broken water mains and leaky pipes.
Are leaky old septic tanks near the shoreline to blame?
Or is the problem something else entirely?
If there is a water-related problem, King George seems to have it—and all the while taking criticism for it.

FAIRBANKS — Alaska’s Department of Environmental Conservation seeks to tighten the standards for per- and polyfluoralkyl chemical pollution in a set of regulation changes up for public comment through Nov. 5.
PFAS chemicals are found in many products, including nonstick pots, waterproof fabrics and high-end ski wax.
PFAS can easily spread across property lines because they dissolve in water and move with underground water flows to pollute nearby wells.
Since 2016, Alaska has required PFAS polluters to clean up the source of contamination based on the concentration of two perfluorinated chemicals, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOS, and perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOA.
The regulations up for comment this month add three additional chemicals to the list of substances that require cleanup when concentrations in groundwater reach a concentration of 70 parts per trillion, which represents about 3 1/2 drops of liquid in an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
And the toxicity information, even though its limited, indicates that these compounds cause adverse health affects at similar doses as PFOA and PFOS,” said Sally Schlichting, a policy and regulations manager of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in Juneau.
By making them part of the cleanup standards, the state would further require PFAS polluters to clean up the source of the chemical and to map the spread of the chemical in the groundwater.
In Fairbanks, the city government has spent more than $3 million since 2016 testing water, delivering clean water and connecting properties with contaminated drinking-water wells to city water.
It’s hard to know whether any additional homes will need to be connected to city water based on the changing state standards, said Fairbanks city engineer Robert Pristash.
In addition to the new cleanup standards for five of the chemicals, a separate standard will apply to water contaminated with a sixth PFAS, perfluorobutanesulfonic acid (PFBS), though it’s only considered harmful at much higher concentrations, 200 parts per trillion.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Water contamination in the oil-rich city of Basra in southern Iraq has contaminated over 110,000 people, Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR) announced on Sunday.
The Human Rights Commission previously stated that at least 500 students from the country’s southern Basra province intend to move to schools in Erbil.
Months have passed since the water crisis in Basra province, yet the water is still contaminated and saline, Tamimi added.
He said some areas receive water whose quality is similar to sewer water.
“I did [fall] sick this morning and had to cancel several meetings.
UNICEF doctor diagnosed the cause as water pollution,” Blecua stated.
“I did not intend to take my solidarity with the people of Basra that far, but certainly now share how you feel,” the EU diplomat wrote on Twitter.
Basra, which accounts for 95 percent of Iraq’s oil exports, has suffered from a lack of clean drinking water in the past few years, with the quality severely deteriorating over the past few months.
Since July 9, people in Basra have staged many protests, which later spread to other Iraqi cities, demanding better public services, clean water, regular electricity supply, employment, and an end to widespread corruption in Iraqi government institutions.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany Updated9 hours ago

ALSO READ: 8 ways stress can affect you On Sunday morning, Ms Kafue unknowingly drank water contaminated with sewage – again.
“I woke up feeling thirsty and since the water in the dispenser was warm I decided to drink tap water,” she told The Standard at her home in Nairobi’s Dam estate yesterday.
But just a few minutes later, when she turned on the shower, she realised drinking the tap water was a mistake.
The first time it happened, the residents only realised the contamination several days later, as the water became darker and smellier.
Kafue now fears that she might fall sick again, which means more money on treatment.
“It has been only three weeks since I cleaned and disinfected the tank and now I have to do it again, which is yet another expense," she added.
The water was extremely dirty and smelled very bad.
Later, when the residents emptied the tanks for cleaning and disinfecting, they realised faecal matter had settled at the bottom,” said Wanyama.
In the September incident, NCWSC stated the contamination was caused by an illegal water connection that had interfered with the water and sewage pipes, leading to sewage leaking into the water pipes.
"The NCWSC had promised to take care of the cleaning and disinfection but did not.

Dangerous chemicals from local manufacturing plants have contaminated the water supply in communities across New York state for decades, but the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to take timely action to address this growing public health crisis.
It is time for state lawmakers and regulators to take the lead in protecting New Yorkers from continued exposure to these harmful chemicals by establishing sensible and enforceable standards for New York state.
One groundwater sample revealed PFOA levels in Hoosick Falls at 130,000 parts per trillion (ppt), more than 18,000 times the EPA’s acceptable level of 70 ppt.
The contamination has left residents susceptible to a range of health issues, including low infant birth weights, immune system hazards, and increased cancer risks, as well as depressed property values after locations in both towns were declared Superfund sites.
Petersburgh and Hoosick Falls residents have filed lawsuits against local manufacturers whose plants knowingly discharged the toxic chemicals, and a New York Supreme Court justice recently certified a class action of current and former community members in the Petersburgh case.
At the state level, Gov.
Andrew Cuomo signed the Clean Water Infrastructure Act in 2017 and recently announced an additional $200 million in grant funding to upgrade state drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, fund modern filtration systems, and regularly test for known contaminants.
A recently released study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry finds acceptable health advisory levels should be around 7 to 11 ppt, far lower than EPA’s current guidelines of 70 ppt.
If New York lawmakers truly wanted to be national leaders for water contamination protection, they could follow, or better yet, exceed the minimum risk levels outlined in August by the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and set New York state’s MCL range no greater than between 10 ppt and 20 ppt, the safest currently known level of PFOA and PFOS exposure.
As communities across the country continue to face water contamination crises, state lawmakers must take action and regulate these dangerous chemicals by establishing a safe, sensible, enforceable maximum contaminant level to protect New York state residents from serious health risks.