Uganda: 1 Million Residents in Wakiso Use Unsafe Water, Says Cao.
However, in many rural and peri-urban areas in Uganda, access to clean water is still a distant dream.
Latest figures indicate that safe water coverage currently stands at 43 per cent, which translates to only 860,000 residents with access to safe and clean water compared to the estimated population of two million people residing in the district.
This means that about 1.14m residents draw water from unprotected sources.
"In fact, we need to guarantee provision of certain basic needs for our people and clean water is among them," he said in an interview on Wednesday.
Wakiso is currently pushing for a city status, but the district is still faced with myriad challenges, ranging from poor road network, poor urban planning, especially in Nansana Municipality, poor health services and dilapidated public schools.
"While we think about developing the country, Wakiso District should be the priority district.
Its development will ease the pressure on Kampala city," Mr Lokuda said.
Wakiso District director of water services, Eng Isaac Galabuzi is optimistic that provision of water will improve with time.
As the Financial Year comes to close, the district has so far drilled 20 boreholes, two motorised wells, 30 hand dug wells, rehabilitated 16 boreholes, designed two rural growth centres piped water supply systems and 269 water sources tested.

The journey is perilous, filled with traps, dust storms, and a number of other obstacles, requiring players to react fast and always stay on the move.
Developer Inkline Studio is based in Beirut, Lebanon, and have been working on Ayo: A Rain Tale for PC.
Ghaith Fleifel, the founder of Inkline and lead developer on Ayo, explained what their motivation was behind the title, saying in the press release… “We want Ayo: A Rain Tale to help raise awareness about the daily hardships faced by those who live in the Sub-Saharan region.
Ayo represents every child who courageously takes on the job of fetching water for their family.
It’s a story that must be told, and we’re confident that games – the preeminent interactive media of our time – are the perfect way to do so.” This isn’t just about virtue signaling, though.
I must say that it’s about time some developer finally try utilizing a different kind of visual aesthetic for their game.
Today’s gaming industry has some of the most advanced and diverse tools on the market, but so many games look identical to one another.
The developers obviously wanted a more over-the-top approach to an adventure based on a real-life crisis.
As for Ayo: A Rain Tale, the game is due out for release on PC.
So if you’re interested in this adventure platformer, feel free to check it out.

New York’s Online Water Portfolio Shares Drinking Water Data by ZIP Code.
Not just Canandaigua drinking water, but all public drinking water statewide is broken down into what it’s made of at "What’s In My Water?"
The site includes information on the presence of contaminants found through state and federal laboratory testing, and the location and nature of some potential threats to local drinking water, all searchable by ZIP code and maps.
"Access to clean drinking water should not be a privilege," according to Ahearn.
You can search by ZIP code for information on your public drinking water supply for recent testing data contained in government records.
This data contains information on the presence of detected regulated contaminants and unregulated contaminants.
For example, checking on drinking water in the city of Canandaigua, you see coliform as a regulated contaminant was in violation from June 1, 2007 to June 20, 2007.
Anestoria Shalkowski, NYPIRG Clean Water Project coordinator, said the research project was done to provide a "one-stop-shop" for information about your local public drinking water.
"It became very important for New Yorkers to be able to see what are the public health threats to our drinking water and groundwater resources within the state, particularly after Flint, Mich., and Hoosick Falls, [N.Y]," Shalkowski stated.
New York state has 2,324 active community-based public water systems that collectively provide the tap water to about 80 percent of the state’s population, or 16 million people.

New York’s Online Water Portfolio Shares Drinking Water Data by ZIP Code.
Not just Canandaigua drinking water, but all public drinking water statewide is broken down into what it’s made of at "What’s In My Water?"
The site includes information on the presence of contaminants found through state and federal laboratory testing, and the location and nature of some potential threats to local drinking water, all searchable by ZIP code and maps.
"Access to clean drinking water should not be a privilege," according to Ahearn.
You can search by ZIP code for information on your public drinking water supply for recent testing data contained in government records.
This data contains information on the presence of detected regulated contaminants and unregulated contaminants.
For example, checking on drinking water in the city of Canandaigua, you see coliform as a regulated contaminant was in violation from June 1, 2007 to June 20, 2007.
Anestoria Shalkowski, NYPIRG Clean Water Project coordinator, said the research project was done to provide a "one-stop-shop" for information about your local public drinking water.
"It became very important for New Yorkers to be able to see what are the public health threats to our drinking water and groundwater resources within the state, particularly after Flint, Mich., and Hoosick Falls, [N.Y]," Shalkowski stated.
New York state has 2,324 active community-based public water systems that collectively provide the tap water to about 80 percent of the state’s population, or 16 million people.

A government agency has contradicted claims made by environmentalists for the seventh time and found hydraulic fracturing doesn’t pose a grave threat to drinking water. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published a study Wednesday that examined 116 water wells across the energy-rich regions of Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana. The study found nine examples of water contamination in the wells, but every case was either naturally occurring or not linked to fracking. “Another day, another study confirming fracking is not a major risk to groundwater,” Steve Everley, a spokesman for Texans for Natural Gas, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “This report comes less than a year after the U.S. EPA’s landmark study that also found no evidence of widespread water pollution from fracking,” Everley said. “It’s time to put to rest the…

Improving the Lives of Women and their Communities with Clean Drinking Water.
In many parts of the world, drinking water is so scarce that women must spend hours each day walking to collect it, transport it back to their communities, and boil it so that it’s safe to drink.
“A five gallon bucket of water can weigh 40 pounds and carrying it is a struggle,” says Malcolm Morris, Chairman Emeritus of Living Water International.
“I’ve seen everything from women suffering miscarriages to their spines compressed because of the heavy load.” Living Water is one of the OPIC partners bringing clean water to remote communities.
Living Water, a faith-based nonprofit in Houston, was formed in 1990 to help expand access to drinking water around the world so that those in remote communities could establish safe and secure sources of water close to their homes.
With the support of OPIC financing, Living Water was able to purchase new drilling rigs to more efficiently access water and provide safe water to over five million people.
“Every community that gets clean water gets more prosperous,” says Morris.
“Women are not spending all day collecting water.
They have more time and sometimes they establish small businesses creating jobs and income for other members of their community.”

SACRAMENTO – The California State Senate today passed important legislation authored by Senator Connie M. Leyva (D-Chino) on a 39-0 vote to ensure that K-12 students across California have access to clean drinking water at school.
The bill will help to prevents students, teachers and other people from drinking contaminated water at schools that find significant sources of lead or other harmful contaminants Testing of drinking water at several San Ysidro School District schools earlier this year found high levels of lead and other contaminants.
Though the school district acted promptly to address the issue, those water fixtures had been in use since the early 1970’s.
In the Inland Empire, Chino Valley Unified School District had also identified issues with lead in their drinking water in 2013.
While these individual school districts may have acted promptly once the contamination problems were found, other school districts across California could still have unsafe drinking water due to old plumbing.
“Lead contaminated water can seriously hurt the lives and education of children.
By incentivizing schools to test water sources and address contamination through better access to state grants, SB 210 will finally give local schools the tools they need to protect schoolchildren from drinking unsafe water during the school day.” Senator Leyva introduced SB 334 in 2015 which sought to require that schools test their water sources and provide children with clean water.
Despite strong bipartisan support, Governor Brown vetoed the bill and directed the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to develop testing procedures for schools.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), exposure to lead and other contaminants is a significant health concern for young children, especially because they are more susceptible than adults to lead’s harmful effects.
Now advancing to the Assembly, SB 210 is supported by the American Heart Association / American Stroke Association, California School Boards Association, California State PTA, Children Now, Community Water Center and the Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano County.

Improving the Lives of Women and their Communities with Clean Drinking Water.
In many parts of the world, drinking water is so scarce that women must spend hours each day walking to collect it, transport it back to their communities, and boil it so that it’s safe to drink.
“A five gallon bucket of water can weigh 40 pounds and carrying it is a struggle,” says Malcolm Morris, Chairman Emeritus of Living Water International.
“I’ve seen everything from women suffering miscarriages to their spines compressed because of the heavy load.” Living Water is one of the OPIC partners bringing clean water to remote communities.
Living Water, a faith-based nonprofit in Houston, was formed in 1990 to help expand access to drinking water around the world so that those in remote communities could establish safe and secure sources of water close to their homes.
With the support of OPIC financing, Living Water was able to purchase new drilling rigs to more efficiently access water and provide safe water to over five million people.
“Every community that gets clean water gets more prosperous,” says Morris.
“Women are not spending all day collecting water.
They have more time and sometimes they establish small businesses creating jobs and income for other members of their community.”

Use your zip code to dive into data about your drinking water Canandaigua’s drinking water is the best tasting in the state, the New York American Water Association determined this year for the second time in four years. But what exactly is in that treated Canandaigua Lake water quenching 35,000 people? A new online water portfolio has the answer. Not just Canandaigua drinking water, but all public drinking water statewide is broken down into what it’s made of at “What’s In My Water?” Think contaminants like nitrates, coliform, bromomethane, strontium, cobalt and trichloropropane — they’re in the data you can pull up for your drinking water supply by putting in your zip code. Megan Ahearn is program director for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) that unveiled the project Tuesday. The tool gives New Yorkers “an interactive, easy to navigate resource about the state of their drinking water,” Ahearn stated in a release. The site includes information on the presence of contaminants found through state and federal laboratory testing, and the location and nature of some potential threats to local drinking water, all searchable by…

Syria: Safe drinking water at last, after four years.
If you lived in rural Homs, you wouldn’t need to imagine it.
“Our only choice is to buy from the trucks that carry water from unknown sources.” In March 2017, I was part of a Medair team from Damascus on a field visit to southern and western Homs.
We met with local water authorities in Homs to get an overview of the situation, and then visited three villages near Homs: Al-Aliyat, Al-Nezha, and Swairi.
In each of these villages we connected with people who shared their stories and concerns over their lack of access to safe drinking water.
“I do not know where the water we buy from the trucks comes from,” said a father from Swairi.
“I am worried about the health of my children, but we have to drink water to stay alive.” Sadly, the high cost of trucked-in water makes it unaffordable for many families.
Thanks to your monthly support, we have been able to rapidly provide safe drinking water to these three villages through two projects.
As we travelled back to Damascus after the March assessment, I reflected on the suffering that my family and I had endured recently—suffering felt by all the people of Damascus when the fighting affected our water supply.
Thank you, Medair!” Your monthly gift to Medair makes these kinds of critical projects possible.