Palestine: World Bank reports assesses restrictions on water development

A World Bank report blames Palestinian mismanagement and Israeli restrictions for severe water shortages in Palestinian areas. Palestinians get only a quarter of the water Israelis have access to. The existing problems effect not just daily supply but the development of water resources, water uses and wastewater management. ”Water related humanitarian crises are in fact chronic in Gaza and parts of the West Bank,” says the report.

For their water Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are completely dependant on scarce resources controlled by Israel. This has led to “systematic and severe constraints on Palestinian development of water resources”, says the report, despite the joint governance rules and water allocations established under the 1995 Oslo interim agreement.  

But the Palestinian Authority (PA) too gets part of the blame. It is struggling to establish even a basic water infrastructure and management, concludes the report.

[...]  Israeli officials said the report was “grossly misleading” as Israel has a much more developed industrial sector which could skew the assessment. But in Gaza 150,000 Palestinians have no access to tap water at all, a report in the Palestine Telegraph says.

According to the local utility provider, several wells have been destroyed during the Israeli offensive earlier this year. Since then only three out of 80 trucks with spare parts and pipes for the water system have been allowed to enter Gaza. As a result the severe damages to two wastewater treatment plants could not be repaired and continue to affect water quality.

Read the full World Bank report “West Bank and Gaza : assessment of restrictions on Palestinian water sector development : sector note“, April 2009. 154 p.

Source: BBC news, 20 Apr 2009 ; World Bank, 20 Apr 2009

Dubai: BBC ‘mole’ unveils insanitary living conditions of migrant workers

“Dubai’s Ministry of Labour is investigating claims made in a BBC report that construction workers in the Emirate are being forced to live in inhumane conditions”.

“The recent BBC [Panorama] investigation found a lack of clean water and raw sewage in one camp, which housed 7,500 labourers in 1,248 rooms. [...] The BBC investigation was carried out by undercover Panorama reporter Ben Anderson, who [secretly] followed a group of [migrant] workers home from work”. 

They were working on the development of the Jumeirah Golf Estates. The main developer, Leisurecorp “has attracted an incredible array of celebrities has attracted an incredible array of celebrities [...]  including [TV cook] Jamie Oliver, [and golfers] Greg Norman, Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia”, BBC reports. 

Speaking anonymously, one of the workers, employed by subcontactor Arabtec, told the BBC reporter: “The latrines are so filthy we cannot use them, we are so disgusted. The roads are full of garbage and waterlogged”. The reporter discovered that “sewage had leaked out all over the camp, and workers had to create a network of stepping stones to cross it and get back to their accommodation blocks. One toilet block had no water supply and the latrines were filled with piles of raw faeces”.

A month earlier Arabtec had been fined 10,000 dirhams, (US$ 2,700 = € 2,100) for allowing sewage to overflow into workers’ accommodation.

“Arabtec said it did not accept that there were unsanitary conditions at any of its camps’ toilets. It blamed the workers, saying, despite training, their “standards of cleanliness and hygiene are not up to your or our standards” and that the toilet block [the BBC] had filmed in may have been a block that was meant to be closed”.

“It now says it is concerned about the situation, and despite originally blaming the problems on a nearby sewage plant, admitted sewage in the camp was a constant problem it was battling to resolve. They said the camp was a temporary one and all workers will be moved out in eight months”.

“In a statement to Panorama, Jamie Oliver Enterprises said they were disturbed by the issues raised [in the programme, but that they] have been given further assurances that the claims made by employees working on a sub-developer’s project will be investigated.” BBC’s Panorama has been told that “Jamie Oliver now wants to come up with more accurate wording to describe his business relationship with Jumeirah Golf Estates. In the meantime, the celebrity chef’s name has been removed from the list of ambassadors on the company’s website”.

Sources: Icon Review, 10 Apr 2009 ; BBC News, 06 Apr 2009 ; BBC Panorama, 06 Apr 2009.

Middle East: water treatment kit for household grey water

A kit designed to treat household waste water for reuse could be one of the ways to tackle water scarcity in rural areas of the Middle East and North Africa, according to a Canadian organisation.

“This is a household-based technology mainly for rural areas to treat grey water that comes from the kitchen sink and bath for re-use,” said Hammou Laamrani, project coordinator at the Regional Water Demand Initiative [WaDImena] of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), based in Canada.

[...] The kit consists of two large PVC barrels about 1.2m high, each able to contain up to 200 litres of water, pipes and sand. Before reaching the barrels, the waste water goes through a separate filter where things like small bits of food are removed. The barrels are filled with sand; there is an anaerobic digestion of the organic matter when the water goes through the sand filter and becomes cleaner.

“The quality of the treated water is improved chemically and biologically; it [the filter] removes the pathogens, particularly the E. coli that could pose a health risk. It also removes parasite eggs as they cannot go through the filter because the filter is a kind of a bio-membrane that removes all those things,” Laamrani explained.

[...] It has a socio-economic impact, it has a positive impact on the environment and it’s viable in terms of technology used,” Laamrani said.

Waste water treated by sand filter has very little nitrogen and potassium, and in terms of chemical pollution poses no risk for the soil, according to Laamrani. It is not a risk to soil because it does not have mineral components that can increase soil salinity and degradation, and it is not a risk to human beings in terms of exposure to pathogens, he said.

“It reduces the amount of water that goes into cesspits – sanitation in rural areas. So they don’t need to clean the cesspit so often – only once every three months, instead of once a week. This reduces the cost of emptying the cesspits,” he said.

“This water can also be used for productive purposes. It is used for the irrigation of saplings, particularly olive trees like we saw in Jordan… This water can also be reused in the household, like for flushing toilets,” he said.

However, it is not suitable for crops or vegetables consumed without cooking, like cucumbers and tomatoes, he said.

“The cost of the kit is $300-400, and in some cases even less depending on the price of components in any given market. If you take into account the productive use of the treated waste water and the reduced frequency of cesspit evacuation, outlay costs can be recouped in a year in places like Jordan and Lebanon,” the IDRC official said, adding that they also had projects in the occupied Palestinian territories and Yemen.

Maintenance is simple: sand in the barrels needs to be changed every 10-15 years, Laamrani said.

One of the drawbacks with the system initially was the smell: “There was no technology to remove the smell when the water was in the barrels. But it has been overcome with a new system that takes the gas out of the barrels… No longer is there a risk of attracting ants or other insects,” he said

Source: IRIN, 23 Mar 2009

See below IDRC”s Waste to Water video (in two parts) on the greywater reuse in the Middle East – Quicktime and Windowas versions are available here.