JERUSALEM/GAZA, 10 March 2008 (IRIN) – As temperatures rise after the winter, more people in Israel and the Gaza Strip will head for the seaside but they should beware: Gaza is being forced to dump much more raw sewage into the Mediterranean than before, environmentalists told IRIN.
Since Israeli-imposed fuel restrictions began in 2007, limiting the Gaza power plant’s ability to produce electricity, some 60,000 cubic metres of untreated or partially treated waste water (40,000 cubic metres more than the restrictions were in place) has been pumped into the sea daily.
The Regional Water Demand Initiative for the Middle East and North Africa (WaDImena) has launched a new research series. The following four working papers can been published:
WaDImena is a five-year project to promote the management of water demand in the region. WaDImena currently works in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Yemen. The main partners are the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
BAGHDAD, 16 March 2008 (IRIN) – When Wafaa Dawood Salman was found dead in August 2007 she seemed no different from the others who had died in Iraq – her body was put in a plastic bag and sent to the morgue for relatives to collect.
Days later it was announced that the 40-year-old woman was the first confirmed cholera case in Baghdad after a national outbreak killed at least 14 people.
Senator Byron Dorgan held a press conference in the US Senate to discuss a recent report by the inspector general, a report that found that US contractors had been delivering contaminated water to US troops in Iraq. The report cited KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton.
ALGIERS, Algeria, February 25, 2008 (ENS) – One of the largest seawater desalination plants in the world was officially opened in Algiers on Sunday by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and a senior executive of the U.S.-based General Electric Company, which built and will operate the plant. The new $250 million facility will supply the drought-stricken, thirsty millions of residents of this capital city by the sea.
SANAA, 5 March 2008 (IRIN) – Sanitation services in Yemen are limited. Almost all villages in rural areas, where 75 percent of Yemen’s 21 million people live, still use traditional means: Sewage is either dumped in watercourses or piped onto open ground.
Officials at the Ministry of Water and Environment said the government was striving to improve sanitation services, but lacked funds.
AMMAN, 4 March 2008 (IRIN) – A crumbling sewage system in the city of Zarqa, 30km east of Amman, could trigger the spread of diseases on a large scale, according to community leaders and residents.
“We warned officials at the Ministry of Water on several occasions that the city’s sewage network is collapsing at a rapid pace under the mounting pressure of the population,” city mayor Mohammad Ghweiri told IRIN.
BEIRUT, 6 March 2008 (IRIN) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has completed rebuilding the primary water supply network in currently accessible areas of the ruined Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, north Lebanon.
Up to 90 percent of the water infrastructure in the areas of Nahr al-Bared outside the official boundary of the “old camp” was damaged or destroyed in a 15-week battle in the summer of 2007 between the army and Islamist militants, according to the ICRC.
Yemen’s water and environment minister says the collapse of national water resources is so severe it cannot be reversed, only delayed at best. More water is being consumed than resupplied to 19 of the impoverished country’s 21 aquifers. The deepest wells in the capital Sanaa are now 1,000 metres and water levels are dropping 6 to 12 to 20 metres a year. Yemen uses about 90 percent of its water to irrigate qat, a mild narcotic plant.
CAIRO, 3 March 2008 (IRIN) – Nearly all Egyptians – 98 percent of the population – have access to piped water but only some have proper sanitation facilities. Not much attention has been paid to the effective and safe disposal of sewage, especially in rural areas, say specialists.
In rural areas – deserts and agricultural areas alike – only 58 percent of inhabitants have access to any kind of sanitation, said Rania El-Essawi, water, environment and sanitation officer at the Cairo office of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Most rural sanitation is primitive, and does not involve a proper sewage system.
The general director of Water in the Ministry of the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, Marta Moren, closed in Villarrobledo (Albacete), an information day on the agricultural sector in the Upper Guadiana, organized by the Consortium Alto Guadiana and the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA). In his speech, Marta Moren said that Spain is moving t […]
Salvador Marin, Minister for Economy for Murcia, together with many guests from the Spanish desalination industries and from the local water authorities, visited the BEL state-of-the-art production facility to celebrate with BEL this achievement. "BEL Group is looking forward to supporting the market growth, BEL will launch shortly its new 16 in side-po […]
