Rural communities in northern KwaZulu-Natal can breathe a sigh of relief as they will no longer have to walk long distances to fetch water.
Thanks to a massive water project undertaken by Mhlathuze Water on behalf of the Department of Water and Sanitation 6 000 households now turn on a tap for a drink of water.
The R96 million project involved the installation of water supply infrastructure to nine wards in deeply rural communities in Nongoma and Abaqulusi Municipalities under the Zululand District in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Not only has the project delivered water to these rural communities it has also helped create about 200 jobs during its implementation phase.
Mhlathuze Water Interim CEO Mthokozisi Duze says they are pleased to be a part of the writing of a new chapter in the lives of the largely rural communities.
“We are extremely elated that finally, people who had never before had convenient access to safe drinking water at the turn of a tap, are finally able to do so,” he notes.
“This project to supply water to the communities of Nongoma and Abaqulusi is ongoing and our goal is to ultimately see everyone effortlessly accessing this precious liquid,” he concludes.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq and the Kurdistan Region face a serious water crisis as the governments of Turkey and Iran have been decreasing or cutting water supplies into the country’s rivers.
The Iraqi Minister of Water Resources, Hassan al-Janabi, said on Saturday that the Turkish government had begun filling the newly-established Ileso Dam on the Tigris River.
According to Janabi, Iraq has an agreement with Turkey regarding the amount of water that is stored in the dam and the quantity to be launched.
He also revealed that an Iraqi delegation would visit Turkey soon to discuss the matter with Turkish officials.
The effects of the Turkish dam filling were noticed on Friday with a significant reduction of water levels in the Tigris River in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, Mosul, and in the marshlands of southern Iraq, raising fears of drought which would affect the country’s livestock and agriculture.
Turkey’s Ambassador to Iraq Fatih Yildiz wrote in a tweet that he was aware of concerns expressed by “the Iraqi people and friends,” and promised to take their worries to Ankara.
He added that Turkey had cooperated and communicated with Iraq in the past and had consulted Baghdad before filling the Ileso Dam.
Riyadh Ezadin, the Director of the Mosul Dam project, said the amount of water coming from Turkey had decreased by 50 percent.
Meanwhile, the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources on Saturday said Iran had deliberately cut water flow to the Lower Zab River in the Kurdistan Region town of Qaladze in Sulaimani Province.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany Updated4 hours ago

Statesman-Journal Salem residents are driving as far as Woodburn in search of bottled water following the city’s announcement Tuesday that its drinking water supply is contaminated.
Those without the time or means to go out of town are temporarily out of luck.
Neither the city of Salem nor the Oregon Office of Emergency Management plan to coordinate water distribution points, OEM spokesman Cory Grogan said.
“There should be a supply of water coming in to stores,” Grogan said.
“It benefits them economically to be distributing water.” Major retailers such as Costco and Roth’s say they’re expecting water shipments, but don’t know if they will come in today or Thursday.
(Story continues below.)
Children younger than 6, people with compromised immune systems, people receiving dialysis treatment, people with pre-existing liver conditions, pets, pregnant women or nursing mothers, or other sensitive people should not drink the water, the city said.
Reports of price-gauging began appearing on social media by Wednesday morning.
Grogan said the Office of Emergency Management is allowing the city of Salem to coordinate the response to the water crisis.
"We don’t get involved unless it becomes overwhelming," he said.

Statesman-Journal Salem residents are driving as far as Woodburn in search of bottled water following the city’s announcement Tuesday that its drinking water supply is contaminated.
Those without the time or means to go out of town are temporarily out of luck.
Neither the city of Salem nor the Oregon Office of Emergency Management plan to coordinate water distribution points, OEM spokesman Cory Grogan said.
“There should be a supply of water coming in to stores,” Grogan said.
“It benefits them economically to be distributing water.” Major retailers such as Costco and Roth’s say they’re expecting water shipments, but don’t know if they will come in today or Thursday.
(Story continues below.)
Children younger than 6, people with compromised immune systems, people receiving dialysis treatment, people with pre-existing liver conditions, pets, pregnant women or nursing mothers, or other sensitive people should not drink the water, the city said.
Grogan said the Office of Emergency Management is allowing the city of Salem to coordinate the response to the water crisis.
"We don’t get involved unless it becomes overwhelming," he said.
Kate Brown, who oversees OEM, could be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

Rep. Dan Kildee (D), who represents Flint, Mich., said a staffer was not allowed in to a portion of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) summit on drinking water contamination this week.
“@EPAScottPruitt’s lack of transparency and willingness to deny access to Members of Congress and the media is deeply troubling.” Peter Grevatt, the EPA’s director of Ground Water and Drinking Water, said in a statement that the second day of the National Leadership Summit on per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) was not meant for congressional staff.
EPA staff in an email to Kildee’s staff, among others, last week specified that Wednesday was "limited to federal agency folks and states," Grevatt said.
"Both state and federal officials had the expectation that the second day of the Summit would be a government-to-government discussion between federal and state co-regulators who are working together to address this important issue.” Kildee’s chief of staff, Mitchell Rivard, told The Hill on Thursday that the staffer who handles Flint’s water contamination issue was barred from entering on the second day.
“Congressman Kildee was never invited to the EPA’s PFAS summit,” Rivard said in a statement.
“After our office asked to attend, the EPA would only allow our office to attend select parts of the summit, and one of the congressman’s staff was actually turned away at the door during Wednesday’s sessions.” Rivard told The Hill that the incident is part of a larger issue of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt attempting to “limit access at a taxpayer-funded meeting.” “The public has a right to know what’s happening inside their government,” Rivard said.
The EPA’s limits on access to the summit already made headlines on Tuesday when a reporter from the Associated Press, Ellen Knickmeyer, was allegedly physically barred from entering the event by an EPA guard.
Following media outrage, journalists were allowed to enter the second half of the hearing but were still banned from attending the second day.
In an op-ed published in The Detroit Free Press on Thursday, Kildee wrote that these two actions by Pruitt’s EPA “are deeply troubling.” The city of Flint has battled a water crisis since April 2014 when the water supply was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River, leading to lead poisoning from the city’s water pipe delivery system.
Officials declared the water safe to drink last month and will no longer deliver free bottled water to residents.

Rep. Dan Kildee (D), who represents Flint, Mich., said a staffer was not allowed in to a portion of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) summit on drinking water contamination this week.
“@EPAScottPruitt’s lack of transparency and willingness to deny access to Members of Congress and the media is deeply troubling.” Peter Grevatt, the EPA’s director of Ground Water and Drinking Water, said in a statement that the second day of the National Leadership Summit on per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) was not meant for congressional staff.
EPA staff in an email to Kildee’s staff, among others, last week specified that Wednesday was "limited to federal agency folks and states," Grevatt said.
"Both state and federal officials had the expectation that the second day of the Summit would be a government-to-government discussion between federal and state co-regulators who are working together to address this important issue.” Kildee’s chief of staff, Mitchell Rivard, told The Hill on Thursday that the staffer who handles Flint’s water contamination issue was barred from entering on the second day.
“Congressman Kildee was never invited to the EPA’s PFAS summit,” Rivard said in a statement.
“After our office asked to attend, the EPA would only allow our office to attend select parts of the summit, and one of the congressman’s staff was actually turned away at the door during Wednesday’s sessions.” Rivard told The Hill that the incident is part of a larger issue of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt attempting to “limit access at a taxpayer-funded meeting.” “The public has a right to know what’s happening inside their government,” Rivard said.
The EPA’s limits on access to the summit already made headlines on Tuesday when a reporter from the Associated Press, Ellen Knickmeyer, was allegedly physically barred from entering the event by an EPA guard.
Following media outrage, journalists were allowed to enter the second half of the hearing but were still banned from attending the second day.
In an op-ed published in The Detroit Free Press on Thursday, Kildee wrote that these two actions by Pruitt’s EPA “are deeply troubling.” The city of Flint has battled a water crisis since April 2014 when the water supply was switched from Lake Huron to the Flint River, leading to lead poisoning from the city’s water pipe delivery system.
Officials declared the water safe to drink last month and will no longer deliver free bottled water to residents.

The government plans to implement a water storage programme to increase the number of Kenyans connected to safe piped water by nine million by 2022.
The countrywide programme, unveiled by President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday, is expected to increase the proportion of households with access to safe drinking water from 60 to 80 per cent in the next five years.
The programme will have a special special focus on informal settlements and arid areas, said the President.
He spoke at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) Nairobi, where he launched the Ministry of Water and Sanitation’s Rapid Results Initiative (RRI) cycle 2018.
The president said provision of water to Kenyans was an underlying enabler for the attainment of his administration’s Big Four development agenda “which is the future I see.” Besides the water reservoirs, Mr Kenyatta announced that the Kenya Towns Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Programme — supported by the African Development Bank — will soon be launched in 22 urban centres across 28 counties.
Strategic plan The president said under the water strategic plan, construction of Itare and Siyoi Muruny dams in Nakuru and West Pokot counties have started.
Others like Thwake (Kitui) and Thiba (Kirinyaga) dams are in their final stages of stakeholder engagement.
Later in the year, said Mr Kenyatta Mwache dam (Kilifi)-with a supply capacity of 186,000 cubic metres of water per day – will be launched to address shortages in Mombasa, Kwale and Kilifi counties.
Additionally, plans to implement the Mzima 11 (two) pipeline are at an advanced stage to supply 105,000 cubic metres of water per day to Taita Taveta and other coastal regions, said President Kenyatta.
Other dams to be launched soon under the new strategic program are Bosto (Bomet), Bonyunyu (on Kisii and Nyamira borders) and Karemenu 11 in Kiambu.

Water supply to parts of northern and western Rajasthan continues to remain affected as the water sourced from the Indira Gandhi Canal is still unfit for drinking despite a drop in contamination levels, officials said.
The water was contaminated after molasses spillover from a sugar mill into Beas river in Punjab.
“The drinking water supply has reduced from 50 Mld per day to 15 Mld per day in Sriganganagar city as we are not using the canal water for supply due to contamination,” Vinod Jain, the superintendent engineer (additional charge) of Public Health and Engineering Department told PTI.
He said the water was being supplied on alternate days.
The situation was similar in Hanumangarh.
Superintendent Engineer PHED (Hanumangarh) Amar Chand Gehlot said 5 Mld water was being supplied against the regular quota of 13 Mld.
“We have not started water supply from the canal as the water is not potable.
A team of experts has come from Jaipur for the water testing,” he said.
“Though there is an improvement in the quality of water, still it is not worth supplying to the public,” he said.
Officials said the Indira Gandhi canal, the main source of drinking water in the region, enters Rajasthan through Hanumangarh district.

Punjab Muktsar, May 19 As polluted water is flowing in canals, the water supply authorities have closed the water inlets of reservoirs so that the already stored water is not contaminted.
The underground water in most parts of the district has been declared unfit.
Now, potable water scarcity is set to hit the area.
Amritdeep Bhattal, SDO, Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Muktsar, said, “We have just got the alert regarding contaminated water flowing in canals in our area.
Now, we are informing our waterworks operators to close the water inlets so that contaminated water doesn’t enter reservoirs.
It may even affect the water supply for some days.
As of now, we will supply the already stored water.” He said most waterworks in the area were dependent on the canal water as the underground water in most parts of the district was declared unfit for drinking.
Meanwhile, farmers said they could not irrigate fields with the contaminated water.
(Archit Watts)

Toxic WasteWater From Oil Fields Endangers CA Water Supply Fred Starrh’s family near Shafter, California, used to have good clean water under their land which they used for their crops.
Starrh said that was before oil companies next door started dumping their waste into open, unlined “percolation ponds” near their farm.
And, Starrh said, “They had about a mile of ponds.” The Starrh family sued the owner of those waste ponds, Aera Energy, a company owned by both ExxonMobil Energy and Shell Global, charging that Aera destroyed their fresh water by polluting the groundwater under the Starrh land through the continuous use of those open waste pits next door.
But here in California, oil companies can legally dump toxic waste onto the bare ground – into what are called “percolation ponds.” The waste comes from oil drilling, which requires an average of 12 gallons of water for every gallon of oil that is produced according to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (CVRWQCB) which oversees this open dumping.
According the CVRWQCB’s Incoming Executive Officer Patrick Pulupa, there are at least 1086 active wastewater ponds stretching from Monterey to Kern County.
NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit found even more active ponds that are not on the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board’s list.
Oil companies contend that the toxins are filtered out as the water seeps into the soil, but a report by the staff at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board concludes polluted water has migrated underground 2.2 miles from the wastewater ponds in one instance and more than a mile in another instance.
He’s concerned that California’s current policy of allowing this kind of dumping in open pits jeopardizes water supplies which the state will need during future droughts.
With regard to the lawsuit from the Starrh family, Aera said, "The facts are that after years of litigation and three jury trials, there was never a finding linking Aera’s operations to damage to tree crops or harmed drinking water resources.
Fred’s son Larry Starrh saves much of his frustration and ire with the situation for state and local regulators more so than even the oil and gas companies.