UNICEF has been in the country for more than 20 years and have been working in different areas.
That means, only two-thirds of the population have access to safe drinking water sources.
Having access to sources is one thing but then the quality of the water that is been used by people for drinking purposes at the household level is different, because the source is somewhere in nature.
There are so many things that can be done by the people in the community to ensure they have safe drinking water.
First of all, meeting WASH objectives, we need to make WASH a priority in the national agenda.
One part will cover capital investment to construct new water systems and sanitation systems in areas that have not been served before.
So that at the end, they can get the water they need at the household level suitable for drinking.
PT: How much has UNICEF spent so far as part of its support for the WASH project?
Jurji: Like I said, it’s over 20 years UNICEF has been working in Nigeria, so I do not have access to that figure.
These, people will have to make sure the source is free from any contamination.

A new analysis from the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, finds that drinking water contamination with PFAS chemicals now exists in 36 states.
The pollutants, also known as perfluorinated compounds, have been found at high levels in the drinking water of approximately 70,000 residents in Bucks and Montgomery counties and are the subject of ongoing investigation by this news organization.
According to a new mapping effort by the Environmental Working Group, known drinking water contamination sites have grown from just a handful a decade ago to more than 94 locations.
That includes dozens of military bases where the chemicals were used in firefighting foams, as well as near industrial plants that used the chemicals in manufacturing processes.
The chemicals have been linked by some studies to health effects including high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, immunodeficiencies, low birth weight babies and some cancers.
In lieu of federal action, states such as New Jersey and Michigan have passed or proposed regulations such as drinking water and surface water limits, as well as limits for the consumption of sport fish.
“With the alarming spread of known PFAS contamination sites, it’s unconscionable that the Environmental Protection Agency has taken only the most feeble steps to respond to the crisis,” said Bill Walker, an investigative editor for the Environmental Working Group, in a prepared statement.
The chemicals also were found in Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Washington.
However, that EPA study mostly sampled large water systems and used detection limits some researchers say was too high.
The Environmental Working Group calculates that some levels of the chemicals are in 194 water systems serving about 16 million Americans, which is in line with other estimates.

Californians have an intense concern about the potential for drinking water contamination and strongly support the bipartisan efforts by state and local governments to address it, according to a poll released today by FM3 Research for the broad coalition of more than 110 public health, agricultural, and environmental justice groups behind Gov.
Jerry Brown’s proposal to create a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund in this year’s budget.
Voters hold water agencies accountable for action to ensure state drinking water and would also like to see their state legislator act to provide funding to improve water quality.
In fact, an overwhelming number of voters are willing to pay an additional $1 on their monthly water bills if it will help ensure safe drinking water in communities around the state.
Three in five (61%) of voters support the creation of a Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund.
The support is widespread across major demographic and geographic categories including 77% of urban voters, 65% of voters of color and 60% of white voters, and majorities in every region of the state, including 64% in the Central Valley.
Taken together, these findings clearly demonstrate that Californians are highly concerned with maintaining access to safe drinking water, and support the goals of the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund as well as the funding mechanism it specifies.
The study was conducted February 17-21, 2018 in 600 telephone in interviews and English and Spanish with likely November 2018 voters.
The margin of sampling error for the study is +/-4.0%.
A comprehensive polling memo is available here.

If we buy bottled water, we are paying from $1,100 (Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water) to $9,240 (Evian Natural Spring Water) per 1,000 gallons of the same groundwater in a fancy plastic bottle.
In Florida the water itself is free.
A common contaminant in groundwater in Florida and worldwide is nitrate nitrogen.
Even the bottled springs water for sale in Florida contains elevated nitrate concentrations.
Nitrate in fertilizer costs anywhere from 50 to 200 times less than the cost of removing it from drinking water.
Its called an aquifer protection dee.
Public utilities have learned that a tiered water rate effectively discourages excessive water use.
While there are some costs for installation and maintenance of a septic system and for lagoons associated with dairies, there is little to no cost for prevention of nitrogen pollution for rural homeowners and agricultural producers.
All groundwater uses must be monitored and users pay a fee in proportion to the amount of groundwater they use.
The proceeds from these aquifer protection fees should be used for preventing excessive depletion and pollution of the Floridan Aquifer.

In most parts of the United States, we’re privileged to have access to clean drinking water with a simple turn of the tap.
Sure, we may use a filter for a smoother taste, but, by and large, our tap water feels safe.
However, a new study reveals there could be something lurking in our H2O that wasn’t previously detectable.
Researchers recently found bacteria in tap water can actually proliferate if a faucet has gone unused for a few days.
What kind of bacteria, you ask?
According to a University of Illinois study, the same microbial communities associated with such illnesses as Legionnaires’ disease.
Before you vow to never use your faucet again, first understand this: Plenty of innocent microbes already live in our tap water and researchers attest that the bacteria found in the study don’t appear to present a health risk, no matter how icky the thought of it might sound.
To collect their findings, the study authors took tap water samples from three separate dormitories on the University of Illinois campus before the school closed for a break and then again just ahead of the students’ return.
“Our results suggest that the increase in bacteria in the post-stagnation samples is a result of something occurring in the interior plumbing, not the outside city source, and in pipe segments closest to the taps,” said Wen-Tso Liu, co-author of the study and a civil and environmental engineering professor, in a press release from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Researchers believe that the influx of bacteria in the post-stagnation samples is due to the interaction between the biofilm on the inside of plumbing pipes and the tap water.

Four Lambton County municipalities have jointly secured a $7-million grant from the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF), money that will be used to make upgrades on the Petrolia Water Treatment plant.
Representatives from Petrolia, Oil Springs, Dawn-Euphemia and Enniskillen Township – including Petrolia mayor John McCharles and Oil Springs Mayor Ian Veen – gathered at the water treatment plant in Bright’s Grove on April 12 to formally launch the project, expected to cost $8 million.
Over the next two years, the water treatment plant will receive several upgrades, including new high lift pumps, a new clear well, as well as other improvements to allow for the service’s expansion.
The project is expected to be finished by 2020.
Not only is the project important in that it will improve access to clean and safe drinking water for residents of all four communities, McCharles said, but the joint effort marked the first time that four Ontario municipalities have successfully teamed together to secure OCIF funding for a joint project.
“It’s a major project worth nearly $8 million and we’re very grateful for the funding from the province,” he said.
“And I’m quite proud of the fact that it was the first time in history that four municipalities came together on a grant application …
I heard from a number of senior members of government, who were thrilled to see the municipalities to get together.” “We all thought it was a great idea because we knew how important it was,” Veen added.
“What it means is that we’ll have affordable and safe drinking water for a long time to come.
“I think for the community it means clean, safe drinking water,” he said.

The International Alliance "Chrysotile" declares that there are capabilities and technical solutions that can be applied to solve a range of problems related to the safe transportation of water resources.
The use of durable and safe chrysotile-containing pipes makes it possible in a short period of time to create an effective system of water supply and drainage.
A recent example can be found in the amendments to the "Directive on protection of workers against risks associated with exposure to carcinogens and mutagens at work".
According to the new regulations, substances such as chromium VI compounds, wood dust and vinyl chloride, classified by the International Agency for Cancer Research as carcinogens of the first group, are permissible for use at work.
Chromium VI, also mentioned in this document as a recognized mutagen and carcinogen (p. 213), is still a major element of environmental pollution in industrialized areas, and can provoke serious illnesses.
Reference to page 171 of the aforementioned document of the WHO, second edition of "Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality Analysis", includes the – relevant yet ignored – conclusion of a specialized commission which states that chrysotile asbestos pipes are considered absolutely safe for the supply of drinking.
Scientists write that "there is no consistent, convincing evidence that the asbestos consumed (together with food or drinking water) is dangerous for human health" and therefore do not see the need to establish a maximum permissible threshold of asbestos fibers content in drinking water.
Moreover, a highly relevant study was published following the July 1996 meeting of the International Programme on Chemical Safety, as well as additional studies conducted by scientists of the WHO and Specialists of the International Labour Organization.
The International Alliance "Chrysotile" considers it necessary to eliminate double standards in relation to chrysotile asbestos in EU countries and to allow its safe and regulated use.
Such a solution would help effectively solve many of the problems of water supply and create a foundation for the safe and comfortable development of all the countries of the world, preventing the death of people from water scarcity and diseases associated with its pollution.

The International Alliance "Chrysotile" declares that there are capabilities and technical solutions that can be applied to solve a range of problems related to the safe transportation of water resources.
The use of durable and safe chrysotile-containing pipes makes it possible in a short period of time to create an effective system of water supply and drainage.
A recent example can be found in the amendments to the "Directive on protection of workers against risks associated with exposure to carcinogens and mutagens at work".
According to the new regulations, substances such as chromium VI compounds, wood dust and vinyl chloride, classified by the International Agency for Cancer Research as carcinogens of the first group, are permissible for use at work.
Chromium VI, also mentioned in this document as a recognized mutagen and carcinogen (p. 213), is still a major element of environmental pollution in industrialized areas, and can provoke serious illnesses.
Reference to page 171 of the aforementioned document of the WHO, second edition of "Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality Analysis", includes the – relevant yet ignored – conclusion of a specialized commission which states that chrysotile asbestos pipes are considered absolutely safe for the supply of drinking.
Scientists write that "there is no consistent, convincing evidence that the asbestos consumed (together with food or drinking water) is dangerous for human health" and therefore do not see the need to establish a maximum permissible threshold of asbestos fibers content in drinking water.
Moreover, a highly relevant study was published following the July 1996 meeting of the International Programme on Chemical Safety, as well as additional studies conducted by scientists of the WHO and Specialists of the International Labour Organization.
The International Alliance "Chrysotile" considers it necessary to eliminate double standards in relation to chrysotile asbestos in EU countries and to allow its safe and regulated use.
Such a solution would help effectively solve many of the problems of water supply and create a foundation for the safe and comfortable development of all the countries of the world, preventing the death of people from water scarcity and diseases associated with its pollution.

SOLOMON ISLANDS (April 16, 2018) – Globally, remaining tropical forests are being rapidly cleared, particularly in countries like the Solomon Islands where commercial logging accounts for about 18 percent of government revenue, and at least 60 percent of exports while providing the largest number of formal sector jobs.
A team of researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and other groups have found that increasing land clearing for logging in Solomon Islands-even with best management strategies in place – will lead to unsustainable levels of soil erosion and significant impacts to downstream water quality.
Combined, these impacts will compromise the integrity of the land for future agricultural uses, interrupt access to clean drinking water and degrade important downstream ecosystems.
The researchers published the results of the study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Loss of the upland forest will compromise local access to clean water essential for drinking, bathing, and household washing," said Wenger.
Findings of this study are being used by KIBCA to communicate to island residents the potential impacts that could occur as a result of logging if the forest was not protected.
"Predicting the impact of logging activities on soil erosion and water quality in steep, forested tropical islands," appears in Environmental Research Letters.
WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) MISSION: WCS saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.
To achieve our mission, WCS, based at the Bronx Zoo, harnesses the power of its Global Conservation Program in nearly 60 nations and in all the world’s oceans and its five wildlife parks in New York City, visited by 4 million people annually.
by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

As a dry area that receives little rainfall, there is no guarantee for families nor farmers that they can have access to safe water for domestic and livestock use.
A hand pump they previously relied on had long been broken, leaving them fully dependent on highly contaminated water sources.
To make matters worse, not only was the water unsafe, it was also hardly enough to meet their daily demand.
While animals only drunk water twice in a week, residents survived for days without water for bathing and cleaning.
For household consumption, villagers would wake up at wee hours of the night, carry their empty jerricans and walk long distances to collect water from the wells, exposing themselves to safety risks.
Despite their efforts, water scarcity caused many to wait for hours to fill their 20-liter jerrican.
To enable residents to gain easy access to clean and safe water, ACTED embarked on repairing the broken hand pump of the communal shallow well to facilitate better and efficient pumping of water, with funding from USAID-OFDA.
The community now has access to clean and safe water that they can drink, use for domestic and hygiene needs, and to water their animals.
“There is no more risk of waking up at 3am to fetch water at the contaminated wells, we can now wear clean clothes and have plenty of water to drink.” -A community member The repaired hand pump addressed one of the biggest problem the residents were facing, especially for women and girls who bear the biggest burden of collecting water for their households.
“Community members in Wamba are now enjoying safe water.” -Natena, Chairperson of Naipash Women Group