Palestine: Thirst for Justice

A campaign called “Thirsting for Justice” was launched the 22th of March, World Water Day which calls on European governments to put pressure on Israel to respect international law and Palestinian right access to water and sanitation.

Behind this campaign launched, is the Emergency Water Sanitation and Hygiene group (EWASH), a coalition of 30 leading humanitarian organizations, including Oxfam.

“Israel policies and practices limit Palestinians’ access to the water they are entitled to under international law” says Ziyaad Lunat. He remarks that under the Oslo Accords Israel controls all sources of fresh water in the West Bank whereas Palestinians are only allowed to take 20 percent of the “estimated potential” of the Mountain Aquifer underneath the West Bank and Israel extracts the balance. As a result, “Palestinians in the West Bank are forced to purchase over half of their water from Israel” and “Israel takes this water from the Mountain Aquifer over which Palestinians have rights to an equitable share”, say the spokesman for EWASH to PNN.

According to the Thirsting for Justice Campaign, in Gaza 90 to 95 percent of the Coastal Aquifer, the only one source of fresh water available for its inhabitants, is contaminated due to over extraction and sewage contamination, making it unfit for human consumption. For Ziyaad Lunat “the restrictions imposed by Israel as part of its ongoing blockade make the rehabilitation of the aquifer and the search for alternatives extremely difficult”.

The campaign itself targets the European governments and citizens. “They do have a stake in the situation here because they fund a lot of the projects that have been destroyed by the Israeli army.” Ziyaad Lunat also says: “We hope there will be a change in attitudes and behaviours.  EU member states have closer ties with Israel and they are in a strong position to affect change”.

Related news:

• The Remarkable Miracle Continues to Happen, 18 April 2011
• Palestinian Detainees Go on Hunger Strike Marking Prisoner’s Day, 17 April 2011

Source: Palestine News Network, Ziyaad Lunat: Palestinian People Thirst for Justice, 14 April 2011

Iraq: Empty Quarter project starts pumping water to Najran

A project to exploit underground water in the Empty Quarter started pumping water to many districts of Najran on the 1^st of April 2011.

“Water supplied by 17 wells in the Empty Quarter are collected at a location 130 kilometers east of Najran city before supplying to various districts,” Director General of the Water Department in Najran province Saleh Heshlan said in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency.

The wells are now capable of pumping 50,000 cubic meters of water daily and the pumped water is collected in the first pumping station in Nuqaiha, 125 kilometers east of Najran, and then pumped with the help of boosting stations, he said.

The project will benefit Al-Fahd and Athayabah districts, districts on both sides of King Abdulaziz and King Abdullah roads from the Holiday Inn to the Al-Shalal intersection.

The minister told local Arabic daily Al-Madinah that there would not be any change in water tariffs despite the fact that demands will tremendously increase in the next five years due to an increase in population and development projects.

“The ministry is currently considering plans to specify the areas in which there is a need for treated sewage water,” he added.

Source: Iraq Daily Journal, April 2, 2011

Water treatment technology showcased

ConocoPhillips, an international and integrated energy company based in the US has created an ‘innovative display’ that caught the visitors’ attention for its innovative design and content, as it reflects the work of one of the company’s major ventures in support and service of the environment, the Global Water Sustainability Center (GWSC).

GWSC is a collaborative effort between ConocoPhillips & General Electric Water Technologies, located at the Qatar Science and Technology Park (QSTP) for the development of innovative, more efficient and cost-effective technologies for the treatment of petroleum by-product water.

The ConocoPhillips displayed also a children’s play area, a plantation area, a marina and desert life area, a cultural area, food outlets as well as school performances throughout the event. The display carried four story boards to explain the global and local water resources, desalination, formation water, reclaimed water and showcase the activities of GWSC/COP.

Dr Adham, GWSC managing director said, “Qatar has very limited ground water and rainfall but has abundant sea water. Hence 99% of Qatar’s household water comes from seawater desalination plants which remove salt & impurities from sea-water resulting in clean, fresh water that is safe for drinking as well as for use in construction, hospitals, factories, irrigation, lawns and landscaping.”

The collected “produced water,” is usually highly saline and may contain hydrocarbons, minerals or metals rendering it impossible to use without treatment.

“Managing the treatment and disposal of the “produced water” is a challenge for our industry,” explained Dr Adham.

Source:aeCERT, April 3, 2011

Lebanon:Long delayed waste-water treatment plant finally opened

A long-delayed waste-water recycling plant was inaugurated in Siniq in Sidon on the 25/10/2010. Officials expect the facility to mitigate disastrous environmental problems. The plan will collect sewage water from Sidon and purify it before it pours into the sea.

The construction of the plant finished in 2006 but its opening was repeatedly delayed due to technical problems. “I hope this will bring good news to Sidon locals and will be the start of eliminating the city’s environmental problems,” Saudi said during the inauguration ceremony. “We have been suffering from these problems for more than 40 years.”

Work on rerouting the canals started two months ago, and five pipe lines from the main network have so far been redirected. Saudi promised the remaining three plants would soon follow and hoped no more waste water would be dumped on the shores.

Electromechanical engineer Ashraf Adwi said that the purified water from the plant would be dumped in the sea, 2 kilometers from the beach.

Source: The Daily Star, Lebanon,October 26, 2010

Morocco’s drinking water facility invested over $ 422 mln in 2009

Morocco’s drinking water facility (ONEP) had invested in 2009 over 422 million dollars (3.7 billion dirhams), bringing its coverage rate to 89% in the rural area.

The program of generalizing access to drinking water in the rural area succeeded in 2009 in supplying an additional population of 246,000 inhabitants, besides 120,000 people in 24 centers, according to figures released, Friday (9.7.2010) in Rabat, by ONEP’s board of directors. 

As for the urban area, the 2009 newly-implemented projects required building 6 treatment plants, including a desalination plant and two demineralization plants. This enabled reaching an additional rate of flow of 1,706 l/s.

The state-owned facility carried out 240 km of supply mains, built 23 new water tanks with a capacity of 14,200 m3 and extended the supply network by 400 km. It had also operated a 308 km-wastewater collection system and three wastewater plants treating 11,026 m3 per day. 
  
Energy Minister Amina Benkhadra, who was presiding over the board of directors’ meeting, lauded ONEP’s 2009 achievements.  

Related site: ONEP

Source: Agence Maghred Arabe Presse, 9 July 2010.

Morocco sanitation receives World Bank support

Morocco will receive $175 million from the World Bank to increase access to potable water supply in the Nador, Driouch, Safi, Youssoufia, Sidi Bennour and Errachidia provinces reported Working With Water on June 16th 2010. According to the World Bank, the project also aims to reduce water-borne disease infection in children. Another $43 million was allocated for wastewater treatment in the Oum Er Rbia basin.

Related news: Magharebia, 28 Jan 2010
Source: Morocco sanitation receives World Bank support, Magharebia , 17 Jun 2010.

Mediterranean water conference ends in failure

Talks aimed at adopting a water management strategy for the Mediterranean failed due to a row between Israel and Arab countries over a reference to the Palestinian territories, participants said.

“Unfortunately we can not reach an agreement,” French secretary of state for European affairs Pierre Lellouche said at the end of the 4th Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Water in Barcelona where the body is based.

The conference aimed to reach an agreement on a strategy for managing fresh water in the Mediterranean to ensure equal access to the non-renewable resource and prevent the issue from becoming a source of conflict in the future.

But a reference to “occupied territories” in a proposed draft text prevented the approval of a final accord event though delegates were in agreement on 99 percent of the technical issues related to water management”, said Lellouche.

The head of the body, Jordan’s Ahmad Masa’deh, said he was saddened by the failure to reach an agreement at the conference because it “casts doubt on the future of the Mediterranean Union.”

The union groups all 27 EU member states with countries in North Africa, the Balkans, the Arab world as well as Israel in a bid to foster cooperation in the region.

“My disappointment is matched only by my hope, this structure is irreversible,” said Lellouche, adding the body is a “fundamental project for peace in this region and it has not lost any validity”.

Israeli Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau rejected responsibility for the failure of the talks and blamed Arab nations instead.

“We wanted to concentrate solely on the problems of water and avoid entering into political themes. But Arab League nations lapsed into pure propaganda and made political declarations against the state of Israel,” he said.

The issue of access to water is of crucial importance for the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin.
Over 180 million people in the region already lack water and over 60 million people face chronic shortages, according to Mediterranean Union experts.

International organizations say Israel’s water supplies fall short of Palestinian needs, but also that the Palestinians have failed to set up the infrastructure and institutions needed in the water sector.
Source: Daily news Egypt, 14 April , 2010

Israel is threatening to shut down water supply to the Palestinians

A short but worrying news article in the Jerusalem Post prompts me to post something on the groundwater contamination situation in the Occupied Westbank. The JP stated that “National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau said Wednesday that Israel should consider ceasing water flow to the Palestinians if they do not stop contaminating the water with sewage”.

In this valley, the towering Israel settlement of Ariel dominates the valley. In the middle lies the Palestinian town of Salfit and below is the domain of some Bedouin families and farmers. These families live literally next to open sewage. Untreated waste water from both the Israeli settlements and Salfit contaminate the valley of Salfit. One man told us how he has to cope with expensive water tankers for supply, living next to a black river created by sewage from both Salfit and Ariel.

Israel completely control the water supply and sewage management in this area. Photographer Skip Schiel has written about the area back in 2007. A proposal to build a sewage treatment plant funded by the Germans has been blocked by Israelis time and again. The result ? No treatment of any sewage water entering the valley. As quoted by Skip, according to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, 80 factories from Ariel’s Burkan industrial zone discharge 0.81 million cubic meters of wastewater per year into nearby valleys. Israel has long prevented the building of proper sewage treatment plants in the Occupied Territories. For Landau now to accuse the Palestinians of contaminating the groundwater whilst Israel prevents and even destroys the building of sewage treatment plants in the oPt consistently, not seeing his own responsibility to the environment but threatening with ceasing water supply to Palestinians instead is simply cruel, uncompassionate and inhumane.

Source: Israel is threatening to shut down water supply to the Palestinians, From the Source Blog, 13 April 2010

Egypt: Study says quality of Nile water has improved

DUBAI, 23 January 2008 (IRIN) – A study, by Egypt’s Nile Research Institute (NRI) which is part the National Water Research Centre (NWRC), has indicated that water quality in the Egyptian segment of the River Nile improved considerably in the months of October and November 2007, giving rise to hopes that drinking water quality for many of Egypt’s 80 million people may improve.

Read more: IRIN, 23 Jan 2008