Efficiency, equity and liberalisation of water services in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Now Available

Report:
"Efficiency, equity and liberalisation of water services in Buenos Aires, Argentina"

prepared for the OECD–World Bank Fifth Services Experts Meeting, by Miguel Solanes, Regional Adviser on Water Resources Legislation and Regulation of Public Services of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

You can download this document at:

http://www.eclac.org/drni/noticias/noticias/3/32683/water_solanes.pdf

Beijing 2008 Games organisers earn praises for flawless test events

BEIJING: After a barrage of criticism over pollution, human rights and other issues, Beijing Olympic organisers are winning new friends this week as pre-Games test events run almost flawlessly.

Athletes and officials who travelled to Beijing from all over the world for rowing and other test events have been full of praise for the venues, and the surprising lack of pollution.

“The water is very clean and the venue is the best I have ever seen,” said Russian single sculls rower Denis Pribyl at the Sunyi Olympic rowing venue.

“Pollution is a bigger factor at home in Russia.”

The upbeat mood and blue skies in the Chinese capital stand in contrast to the launch last week of the one-year countdown, when the city was enveloped in a thick smog that reduced visibility to just a few hundred metres.

As China celebrated then, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge warned that the pollution was so bad that some events might have to be postponed next year.

Human rights organisations, press freedom advocates, free-Tibet groups and other activists also used the one-year mark as a platform to publicise their causes, further clouding China's celebration efforts.

But now clear skies have replaced the haze and the focus has switched back to sport, with Beijing staging major international events in hockey and beach volleyball, as well as the rowing.

“We heard about pollution fears but looking at the sky today and enjoying this weather, we don't see any problem. It's fantastic,” said Canadian beach volleyballer Anouk Boileau on Monday.

John Coates, a former rowing cox and now the head of Australia's Olympic Committee, described the Games rowing venue, a man-made basin northeast of Beijing, as the best of its kind in the world.

The hockey venue, part of a cluster of more than half the Games venues in northern Beijing, was also given the seal of approval after it hosted a four-nation tournament which ended on Monday.

“It is an absolutely fantastic stadium – I give it 9.5 out of 10 and I hope we can use it after the Olympics, said Arjen Meijer, the International Hockey Federation's communications manager.

“Beijing really did a good job here.” – AFP

Turkana, Not just more wells but clean wells

3 July 2007, by George Kamau in Nairobi. Many residents of Karamoja cluster live next to wells yet still they are not accessible to safe, adequate and reliable water. Many of traditional hand dug wells dug in the seasonal flowing rivers in the recent past by the pastoral community are prone to surface contamination. The traditional wells are simple holes dug into the ground along dry river beds. The women (it is their responsibility to water livestock) go down the wells and scoop water using traditional cooking utensils (sufurias) transferring the same
to the other (usually a co-wife or a daughter) who pours the waters to a trough made from wood to water the family's livestock.

Recurrent challenges like fluctuation of water table in the hand dug wells, Contamination from surface flow, siltation and the accessibility of the open water sources to all including 'enemies' have negatively affected the pastoralists' ability to cope with has weather conditions.
During dry seasons, the hot sun bites into the wells, quenching its thirst and spreading water shortage negative impacts such as violent resource-based violent
conflicts.

In Lokiriama, Lorengkipi and Namuruputh areas of western Turkana and parts of northern Turkana including Lokichoggio , Mogila, Song'ot and Nanam, Practical Action found at least 100,000 people living in the surrounding manyattas without reliable access to clean water, many because their strategic and reliable water sources are either dried up, non operational, blocked or polluted. Thus, the organization endevoured to rehabilitate boreholes and shallow wells, construction of water troughs and capacity building of water services providers.

According to Erick Ogara, Practical Action's Karamoja cluster coordinator, a survey done in the area revealed that in Lokiriama and Namuruputh a total of eleven shallow wells have dried up leaving only one shallow well to serve over 30,000 pastoralists and their livestock.

The shallow well is currently over utilized and risks breaking down. The local water users lack the essential spare parts and skills to maintain and operate the shallow wells and mechanisms for allocating water equitably. In addition, they lack the capacity to manage conflicts arising from water use and to engage in environmental sanitation.

He says that the surveys revealed many wells were not functioning. The majority of residents said that the one thing they needed most to improve their lives and sources of livelihoods was to get their wells working again. Through its water and sanitation sector, Practical Action has addressed the risks associated with age-old water related problems like siltation, giving the pastoral community a hope of relying on these wells during the drier months of the year.

Losike Ekitela, 53, a local from Loteteleit, Lokichoggio had initially resisted the move to rehabilitate his hand dug well, admits that access to water has been an all-time problem in the area.

"Our people treasure their herds. They don't want to lose any livestock but because the wells are open and slippery we regularly lose small livestock especially goats. These rehabilitated wells will help minimize the loss and take us through long dry spells," he said

"We have witnessed drought periods that may possibly last half a decade or two. While we were crying out for water for our livestock and our families, this program has helped us prepare for any future episodes of droughts that many residents dread may reduce us to paupers," said Anna Lobuin, a pastoralist from Loima division.

Refurbishing a shallow well costs a quarter of the cost of building a new one, said James Lachule, water and sanitation officer for Practical Action in the area. "Refurbishment is more effective because it is sustainable," he said. Each of the rehabilitated shallow wells, hygiene promotion messages are conveyed, wells are chlorinated, management team selected and wells professionally designed in collaboration with key stakeholders including the Ministry of water.

The shallow well gets a concrete platform to keep animals, dirt and sand out. The 'back to basics' open well technology commonly referred to as 'rope and bucket' mounted on a windlass are used to draw water from the wells. 10 litres, galvanized iron, metallic Buckets are hung on chains fastened with bolts and nut for durability purposes and add weight to the buckets, which are attached to windlass to keep the 'rope' off the ground. The people in the communities provide labour.

Lachule, water and sanitation project officer overseeing the European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) funded Practical Action water projects said the aim of the project is not just to construct or rehabilitate wells but to inspire people to improve their sanitary conditions while at the same time sustainably sharing the available water resources to take them through drought period.

"We have a solid drought preparedness plan but more importantly we have a solid, long-term plan to manage our water points. Our efforts to fully utilize our adoption of technologies to suit the communities' demands, once realized, are what will strengthen the resilience of the communities the most against droughts. We are working to convince them to take more responsibility for the problems they face," he explained.

The drought preparedness plan includes initiated measures based on the severity of the drought and the appropriate response. Construction and rehabilitation of communal shallow wells water troughs and boreholes are included in response to the impacts of a drought on pastoralists' available water supply, which is primarily groundwater.

"In six months, I have seen improvements. It was common to find locals fetching dirty and spoilt water full of sand for domestic and watering their animals in every area. Now the young and the old are starting to maintain the rehabilitated and newly constructed shallow wells themselves, making community rules like not allowing animals to step on the cemented covers or go into the water point."

"Practical Action has endeavored to strengthen the resilience of the Karamoja residents by ensuring sustainable access to water sources; not just more wells but clean wells," he explained

See also the George Kamau Weblog

SWASC Supplies Clean Water to Sinazeze

The Times of Zambia (Ndola)
NEWS
26 June 2007
Posted to the web 26 June 2007

By Edward Mulenga
Ndola

MANY Zambians cannot remember the last time a K20 note bought something.

It is also unimaginable and unbelievable that several Zambians can accept the note, when given as change after purchasing something.

Nevertheless, Southern Water and Sewerage Company (SWASC) has made it a usable note in rural Sinazeze of Sinazongwe district.

The recent commissioning of the water facility in the area has brought joy to the low income community in the area and given assurance of further improvement in facilitating access to clean and safe drinking water.

With the new facility, the 140 households and 1,120 residents in the community will be required to contribute an amount of K25 per 20 litre container of water.

Nkandabwe ward councillor, Patson Mangunje, asked the water company to also provide sewerage services because the community was exhausting all the land for digging pit latrines.

It was even more nauseating to the community that the pit latrines contaminated the water from the wells, hence the need for sewerage facilities.

Mr Mangunje also asked the company to increase the number of kiosks to further increase the supply of water.

SWASC managing director, Alfred Masupha, said during the commissioning that several other projects in other low income settlements were in the pipeline to ensure people had given clean water.

Sinazeze is privileged to receive the facility.

He said piped water would be provided when the necessary arrangements had been done, upon completion of formalities by the residents who request for it.

The families in the rural area will now access clean and safe drinking water following the commissioning of the K200 million water project with financial support from the German Devolution Trust Fund (DTF).

In its determination to provide clean and safe drinking water to the low income peri-urban population, SWASC, which started the project in October last year commissioned the facility last month witnessed by hundreds of jubilant Sinazeze residents.

The project, among others to be commissioned in the province, has set pace for further improvement and access to the essential commodity and put an end to persistent diseases emanating from the dirty water the rural population relies on.

The commissioning brought with it a lot of enthusiasm and sense of redemption to the Sinazeze community as they cherished the facility which will provide readily available clean and safe water.

With the poor sanitation, compounded by the lack of sewerage facilities, the launch of the water plant served as a beginning of the process towards the provision of sewerage facilities.

The project, done with the funding from the DTF includes a new bore hole, electrical pump house, a 10, 000 litre tank and two kiosks.

Mr Masupha said the project followed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the DTF after SWASC's financial request.

The company is happy to have executed the project successfully and is among several others on his company's agenda in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of attaining access to safe and clean drinking water by 2015.

"As a company, we are happy to report that we have carried out the project with due diligence, efficiency and success," Mr Masupha said.

He also warned the community against vandalism saying the facility should be regarded as theirs because it was meant to benefit them.

The scheme's current water capacity is sufficient to serve the community even if its size doubled.

To show that it is really aimed at empowering the community, local contractors executed the project in order to contribute to poverty reduction efforts in rural areas.

The company will engage local water vendors to serve the community at kiosks, to be supervised by the Resident Development Committee (RDC) as a way of partnering with the community in service delivery.

Gracing the commissioning, Sinazongwe district commissioner (DC), Laiven Apuleni, encouraged the community to own the project and pay the small fee as it would effectively serve the 140 households and 1,120 people in the area.

He said the project was a sign of the Government's commitment to improve water supply to peri-urban areas.

Mr Apuleni hailed the DTF for the support and the community for their cooperation in seeing the project succeed as access to safe and clean drinking water in poverty reduction.

He said the occasion was a reminder on the challenges still to be faced in achieving the MDGs on access to safe and clean drinking water by the less-privileged population by 2015.

According to the DC, many rural dwellers had migrated to urban areas fleeing increased poverty levels in rural Zambia and that such projects aimed at alleviating poverty would change the pattern of lifestyle options in Zambia.

"These migrants usually found themselves in high density peri-urban and this resulted into increased demand for water and sanitation services.

"This coupled with low or no investment in the water sector and poor management practices resulted into insignificant improvements in water supply systems in the low income and peri-urban settlements over the years," Mr Apuleni said.

Following the Government's National Water Policy formulation in 1993, the stage for water reforms was set in the water sector and enabled the government to prepare for the coming challenges.

It is with these policies that the rural areas are now receiving more water facilities to increase access to safe and clean drinking water through water utilities such as SWASC.

As the primary aim of the DTF is to increase access to safe, affordable and sustainable water and sanitation services to the urban poor, the fight against poverty and plans to improve living standards in the countryside will be meaningless without access to safe and clean drinking water.

"You may wish to know that previously, people here used to draw water from unsafe sources like the nearby streams, unprotected wells and also from hand pumps which would break down from time to time.

"Sinazeze is a growing area and the need for water and sanitation services cannot be over emphasised," he said.

With the water utility, medical and other facilities, including businesses will be sufficiently served.

As it is widely-believed that water is life, the provision of such a commodity to rural areas is a sign of commitment by the Government through responsible departments to uplift the living standards of dwellers and keep them safe from disease outbreaks associated with unclean water.

The determination exhibited by SWASC to spread its provision of such services in the Southern Province will undoubtedly quicken the pace of Zambia towards achieving some MDGs by 2015.

The onus is now on the community to safeguard the facility against vandalism and sustain it by contributing the unimaginable K25 per 20 litre container of water.



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Copyright © 2007 The Times of Zambia. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

Environmental Sanitation Day - Uses And Abuses

Daily Trust (Abuja)
NEWS
26 June 2007
Posted to the web 26 June 2007

By Nasidi Adamu Yahaya


Nigerians will on the 28th of this month celebrate National Environmental Sanitation Day (NESD) with the aim of improving the living condition of the people through an improved environment.

The environmental sanitation day which approved under environmental sanitation policy of the federal government intends to give environmental responsibilities to states and local governments. The policy has three components: the main policy itself; guidelines for its implementation and action plan for implementation.

Property and Environment checks revealed that ministry of environment, housing and urban development targets of the policy seek to increase access to toilet facilities in public places and in households; increasing management of sewage and excreta and seeking to institute school sanitation programmes.

A statement from the ministry stated that the goal of NESD instituted in 2005, is to institutionalise sound environmental sanitation practices as a lifestyle among the populace through awareness creation and reward for innovative best practices on environmental sanitation

This year's celebration with the theme "Environmental Sanitation, a key to the Millennium Development Goals" will feature cleaning of markets and abattoirs on Saturday before the 28th of June, 2007.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are world's time-bound targets for overcoming extreme poverty and extending human freedom. Representing something more than a set of quantitative benchmarks to be attained by the year 2015, they encapsulate a broad vision of shared development priorities. That vision is rooted in the idea that extreme poverty and gross disparities of opportunity are not inescapable features of the human condition but a curable affliction whose continuation diminishes and threatens collective security and prosperity.

However, as the day is celebrated every year, the people whose responsibility is to clean their environment as well as ensure filth-free surrounding are displaying nonchalant attitudes towards making its{environment} habitable.

Governments seem to have been carried away by other engagements thereby turning an eye to its responsibilities on the environment.

Adequate sanitation is the foundation of development-but a decent toilet or latrine is an unknown luxury to half the people on earth. The percentage of those with access to hygienic sanitation facilities has declined slightly over the 1990s. The main result can be summed up in one deadly word: diarrhea. It kills 2.2 million children a year and consumes precious funds in health care costs, thus, preventing families and nations from climbing the ladder of development

Deficiencies in environmental sanitation-solid waste, waste water, excreta disposal, drainage and community hygiene contribute significantly to the continuing high rate of infant and child mortality from diarrhea diseases and also play a role in vector-borne diseases. Many studies indicate that lack of sanitation puts people at higher risk of diarrhea, a disease resulting from lack of safe water.

World Health Organization (WHO) says over the last decade, access to water supply has risen from 61 % to 75% in developing countries, but during the same period, the proportion of people with access to sanitary means of excreta disposal declined from 36% to 34% as funding for sanitation decreased and population increased. The relatively few existing sanitation programs often have not achieved the desired health impact. Because the behavioural aspects are often overlooked when construction and technology are the focus, the sanitary units may be built but they won't be used or maintained, and little or no health impact will be realized.

Compelling data exist about the health effects of sanitation. Environmental Health Project (EHP) has found that wide dissemination of these data is a powerful advocacy tool. Efforts to advocate for change in sanitation policies are far more effective when supported by data on sanitation coverage (actual and trends) and on the critical role of sanitation in improving health. Of particular interest is research on the impact of water supply projects with and without sanitation components. Improved sanitation also plays a role in the achievement of other summit goals related to health, nutrition, and empowerment.

Linking sanitation to existing health or environmental programs or objectives is an efficient strategy or increasing sanitation investments. EHP is focusing on strengthening sanitation policies to improve health, especially the health of children under five. Other organizations may be involved in sanitation for different motivations. For example, in Jamaica, the entry point for development of an effective sanitation program was USAID's. In Bolivia, USAID and the Ministry of Health supported increased investments in a participatory approach to community and household hygiene when they came to realize that, in spite of significant investments in infrastructure for rural water supply and sanitation, child diarrhea disease rates were still very high.

Changing people's opinions and institutional priorities and policies is a long-term process that requires consistent and ongoing championing of sanitation.

Uganda is implementing a national initiative, above the ministerial level, that includes legislation promoting collaboration among various ministries and stakeholders. This quotation from the Preamble of the Declaration stresses the heavy economic and social burden of lack of sanitation. Poor sanitation is a major constraint to development in Uganda as manifested by environmental degradation and pollution of otherwise protected water sources.

The coordination and cooperation necessary to increase sanitation programs at the country level have proven difficult and time-consuming in the field.

Providing effective household and community sanitation on a large scale calls for coordination and collaboration by a wide variety of institutional stakeholders in both public and private sectors and at national, regional, and municipal levels. Such cooperation has proven extremely difficult to achieve, especially reaching consensus on who should be the lead agency.

While progress was been made to move sanitation higher on the list of priorities of the government and external support agencies, much more still need to be done. As mentioned above, the fact is that sanitation has become more of a problem over the last five years. Water supply specialists continue to dominate the water supply and sanitation sector and to be strongly biased towards water supply programming. Significant investments have been made in increasing water supply coverage. The professionals who designed and implemented those programs are the major players in water and sanitation today. Unfortunately they are far more than committed to water than to sanitation programs and are more comfortable with water program design. To reduce this water bias current sector, professionals need to be re-trained in the relatively more complicated elements of sanitation programs and new professionals need to be attracted to the field.

Generally, sanitation programs have no health goals; increasing coverage is the sole goal. While many institutions give lip service to health goals for their sanitation programs. The major indicator of success is still increased access. However, access can be increased with no effect on health, as has been shown in many areas. The health sector may become re-engaged in sanitation. Shifting away from access to proper use as a main goal and indicator-just this one change-could help promote effective collaboration between the health sector, the municipal development sector, and the environment sector

The absence of clean water and adequate sanitation is a major cause of poverty and malnutrition.

Diseases and productivity losses linked to water and sanitation in developing countries amount to 2% of GDP, rising to 5% in Sub-Saharan Africa-more than the region gets in aid.

In many of the poorest countries only 25% of the poorest households have access to piped water in their homes, compared with 85% of the richest? The poorest households pay as much as 10 times more for water as wealthy households.Water is a vital productive input for the smallholder farmers who account for more than half of the world's population living on less than $1 a day.

Mounting pressure to reallocate water from agriculture to industry threatens to increase rural poverty. Collecting water and carrying it over long distances keep millions of girls out of school, consigning them to a future of illiteracy and restricted choice. Inter-related diseases such as diarrhea and parasitic infections cost 443 million school days each year equivalent to an entire school year for all seven-year old children in Ethiopia-and diminish learning potential .inadequate water and sanitation provision in schools in any countries is a threat to child health. The absence of adequate sanitation and water in schools is major reason that girls drop out.

Parasitic infection transmitted through water and poor sanitation retards learning potential for more than 150 million children.

The absence of clean water and adequate sanitation is a major cause of poverty and malnutrition: one in five people in the developing world lack access to an improved water source.

Bringing water and sanitation into the mainstream of national and international strategies for achieving the Millennium Development Goals requires policies aimed at making access to water a human right and legislating for the progressive implementation of that right by ensuring that all people have access to at least 20 litres of clean water a day. Introducing lifeline tariffs cross-subsidies and investments in standpipes to ensure that nobody is denied access to water because of poverty, with a target ceiling of 3% for the share of household income spent on water. Regulating water utilities to improve efficiency enhance equity and ensure accountability to the poor, introducing public policies that combine sustainability with equity in the development of water resources for agriculture.

Linking targets and strategies for achieving universal primary education to strategies for ensuring that every school has inadequate water and sanitation provision, ,with separate facilities for girl asking sanitation and hygiene parts of schools' curriculum, equipping children with the knowledge they need to reduce earth risks and enabling them to become agents of change in their communities and establishing public health programmes in schools and communities to prevent and treat water-related infectious diseases.

Dirty water and poor sanitation account for the vast majority of the 1.8 million child deaths each year from diarrhea almost 5,000 every day-making it the second largest cause of child mortality. Access to clean water and sanitation can reduce the risk of a child dying by as much as 50%. Diarrhoea caused by unclean water is one of the world's greatest killers, claiming the lives of five times as many children as HIV/AIDS. Clean water and sanitation are among the most powerful preventative measures for child mortality: achieving the Millennium Development Goals for water and sanitation at even the most basic level of provision would save more than 1 million lives in the next decade; universal provision would raise the number of lives saved to 2 million. Waterborne diseases reinforce deep and socially unjust disparities, with children in poor households facing a risk of death some three to four times greater than children in rich households.

The goal of halving the proportion of people without access to water and sanitation will be missed on current trends by 234 million people for water and 430 million people for sanitation. Sub-Saharan Africa will need to increase new connections for sanitation from 7 million a year for the past decade to 28 million a year by 2015.

Slow progress in water and sanitation will hold back advances in other areas. The unsustainable exploitation of water resources represents a growing threat to human development generating an unsustainable ecological debt that will be transferred to future generations. The number of people living in water-stressed countries will increase from about 700 million today to more than 3 billion by 2025. Over 1.4 billion people currently live in river basins where the use of water exceeds minimum recharge levels, leading to the desiccation of rivers and depletion of ground water. Water insecurity linked to climate change threatens to increase malnutrition by 75-125 million people by 2080, with staple food production in many Sub-Saharan African countries falling by more than 25%.

Groundwater depletion poses a threat to agricultural systems, food security and livelihoods across Asia and the Middle East. There is no effective global partnership for water and sanitation, and successive high-level conferences have failed to create the momentum needed to push water and sanitation in the international agenda. Many national governments are failing to put in place the policies and financing needed to accelerate progress. Water and sanitation is weakly integrated into poverty. Many countries with high child death rates caused by diarrhoea are spending less than 0.5% of GDP on water and sanitation, a fraction of what they are allocating to military budgets. Rich countries have failed to prioritize water and sanitation in international aid partnerships, and spending on development assistance for the sector has been falling in real, terms, now representing only 4 % of total aid flows. International aid to agriculture has fallen by a third since the early 1990s, from 12% to 3.5% of total aid.

Governments should act by putting in place practical measures that translate Millennium Development Goals' commitments into practical actions, provide national and international political leadership to overcome the twin deficits in water and sanitation, supplementing the Millennium Development Goal target of halving water and sanitation coverage disparities between the richest and poorest, empowering independent regulators to hold service providers to account for delivering efficient and affordable services to the poor, treating water as a precious natural resource, rather than an expendable commodity to be exploited without reference to environmental sustainability and reforming national accounts to reflect the real economic losses associated with the depletion of water resources.

Government should also introduce integrated water resources management policies that constrain water use within the limits of environmental sustainability, factoring in the needs of the environment, institutionalizing policies that create incentives for conserving water and eliminating perverse subsidies that encourages unsustainable water-use patterns, strengthen the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol to limit carbon emissions in line with stabilization targets of 450 parts per million, bolstering clean technology transfer mechanisms and bringing all countries under a stronger multilateral framework for emission reductions in 2012.

There is also the need for national adaptation strategies for dealing with the impact of climate change-and increasing aid for adaptation with a global plan of action in place to galvanize political action, placing water and sanitation on to the agenda, mobilizing resources and supporting nationally owned planning processes. Developing nationally owned plans that link the Millennium Development Goal target for water and sanitation to clear medium-term financing provisions and to practical policies for overcoming inequality.



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Copyright © 2007 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
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New methods bring clean water to slums

Anissa S. Febrina, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An empty paint bucket, a plastic bottle and abundant sun.

For most Jakartans, they would seem to be worthless. But, for Ipah, a mother of six living under the city's flyover in Teluk Gong, West Jakarta, these things make clean water and sanitation less of a luxury.

"It has been months since my toddlers had diarrhea," Ipah said as her children played around a stack of trash in front of her concrete shaded home.

The neighborhood Ipah and dozens other families live in makes a perfect breeding ground for bacteria, but the risk has been minimized since they came upon simple and affordable methods to treat water.

"We have been using Air RahMat for several months now. It's simple and cheap," said Encum, a neighbor.

Using their usual source of water from the local public tap plus a few drops of liquid sodium hypochlorite Air RahMat, residents of Teluk Gong no longer have to spend money on buying kerosene to boil drinking water.

And the chemical that costs them Rp 4,000 (around US 50 cents) frees their children from diarrhea.

"But it does have a weird taste," said another housewife when a field officer from non-governmental organization Emmanuel Foundation visited the area.

The foundation has been introducing cheap ways to treat water to several slum communities in Jakarta. The use of liquid sodium hypochlorite is only one among many implemented in different settlement areas.

"People living in substandard settlements see water differently from us. For them, as long as there is water, no matter what the quality is, it's OK," Emmanuel public health engineer Arum Wulandari said.

Statistics show that almost 80 percent of Indonesians use water sources that are likely to be contaminated with bacteria. Due to bad sanitation, some 100,000 toddlers in Indonesia die of diarrhea every year.

People living in slum areas are the most prone to the disease as they have no connection to tap water services and have little money to spend on clean bottled water.

Aside from introducing Air RahMat, Arum brought with her a ceramic filter system that works as efficiently as the liquid sodium hypochlorite but costs a little more.

Inside a makeshift home, just a five-minute walk from Ipah's house, a family uses a device that looks like a regular drinking water dispenser.

Unlike commonly found dispensers, this one was made of two stacked plastic containers in which a small brown ceramic tube is installed.

Water drips slowly from the tube to the lower container where Burhan and his family get their water.

"People say our water is refreshing. This system has worked for us for two years now," Burhan said.

The family's first ceramic filter had got broken when they were evicted several months ago, and a second one burned down along with their home under the flyover.

But, Burhan insisted on buying another one as the filter produced in Plered, West Java, helped the family a lot.

"The filter requires a higher upfront investment, but once you have it, you need not spend any money to make sure that you are drinking clean water," Arum explained.

"The ceramic is made with pores small enough to trap micro-organisms," she said.

Burhan's family paid for the filter in Rp 50,000 monthly installments, much less than the Rp 60,000 they were spending for kerosene to boil their water.

In three months, they won't have to anything for clean water.

An hour drive away from Teluk Gong, residents of Tanjung Priok simply rely on clean plastic bottles and sun rays to treat their drinking water.

"The method is unpopular in Teluk Gong as they live under the flyover, an area where sun rays can't penetrate," Arum said.

But, in coastal Tanjung Priok, residents who are mostly scavengers gladly pour the previously unsafe water into used plastic bottles and expose them to the sun for six hours.

And, voila, the water is safe to drink as the ultraviolet rays have disinfected it and no more boiling is needed.

"We cannot provide access to water for slum dwellers through conventional ways like connecting them to the city water service or building them a well," Emmanuel's program officer Mindy Weimer said.

Living in a city that sees slum dwellers as an eyesore, residents of areas like Teluk Gong are faced with the constant threat of eviction.

Under such conditions, drops of sodium hypochlorite, plastic bottles and sun rays and ceramic filters made available at affordable price work better than empty promises of clean water from the authorities.

Water on tap for national taste test

Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner is hoping that a national competition taking place this weekend in California will propel the city into yet another "best of" category -drinking water.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors will put the drinking water of five finalist cities through a taste-off over the next three days.

Mr. Finkbeiner yesterday boasted of the crystal-clear concoction that Toledo likes to call "The Champagne of the Great Lakes."

He credited the city's water treatment technicians who test the drinking water 50,000 times a year at various locations in the system.

Toledo's water was one of 93 entries in the U.S. Conference of Mayors 2007 City Water Taste Test Competition.

A celebrity panel narrowed the field to 15 semifinalists and then again to five finalists June 6, according to the organization.

The water was judged based on taste, aroma, and clarity, with each sample identified by a number rather than the name of the city that produced it.

A winner will be selected by the votes of several hundred mayors who will be at the 75th annual meeting of the mayors' association this weekend through Tuesday, according to the organization, which is meeting in Los Angeles.

Mr. Finkbeiner won't be among them.

The other finalists are Anaheim, Calif.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Long Beach, Calif., and St. Louis. The winning city will receive a cash award of $15,000, the organization said.

Rotarians take clean water initiative to Congo

Project to provide water for more than 12,000 people
By: Jared Hoffmann
Thursday, June 21, 2007 10:46 AM CDT

Members of the Parkville Rotary Club are working on a project that will provide clean water to remote locations in the Congo.

Former Parkville resident and rotary member Greg Prymak initially made contact with a representative of the Lubumbashi (Congo) Rotary Club in 2003 while doing missionary work. After witnessing the substandard water quality first hand, Prymak decided to act as a liaison between the two rotary clubs to address the issue.

Prymak said the remote villages located on the outskirts Lubumbashi had no access to clean water. He said they had to make multiple trips each day to a nearby river, where they would use dingy water for cooking, cleaning and even drinking.

Prymak said the club’s project would place roughly six public drinking wells within a 15-mile radius of the city.

“The goal is to drill these wells and hopefully hit an aquifer that will give them a steady supply of clean water,” Prymak said. “These will be in places like villages that do not have running water.”

Prymak said the first step was to solidify the funding mechanisms to get the project started. He said between the rotary clubs of Parkville, Lubumbashi and the district club, the necessary $22,000 was raised for the project. He said once plans were finalized, a contractor in Lubumbashi would be selected to drill the 160-foot deep wells. The wells would be operated with manual hand pumps, which would extract clean water from below the ground.

Prymak said providing the Congolese with clean water helped address a basic life need, which would allow them to focus on other priorities.

“Congolese are very intelligent, very dynamic people. It’s just that the economy and infrastructure are not very robust,” Prymak said. “They do a great job with what they have.”

Roger Parson, a member of the Parkville Rotary Club, is assisting with several aspects of water project. He said the next step was to solidify a plan and then have it approved by Rotary International. Upon approving the plan, Parson said, the club would release its matching grant funds.

“We have a paper trail that is pretty extensive,” Parson said. “Then we have to put a plan of action together. We’re just getting started with the process.”

Parson said the project aligned with the overall goal of all rotary clubs, which was to carry out projects that make a positive impact on the world.

He said although clean water was something many might take for granted, it was a pressing need for the Congolese.

“I don’t think that Americans appreciate water,” Parson said. “We just turn the tap and its there. Over there people are dying, and it’s just unbelievable what they’re living with.”

Staff writer Jared Hoffmann can be reached at 389-6636 or jaredhoffmann@npgco.com.

Rain gardens for clean water

06/20/07

What is a rain garden?

A rain garden is a shallow basin filled with plants that thrive in and absorb water. Sediment-filled storm water or other runoff that would otherwise flow directly into streams is captured and filtered by the rain garden as it gradually seeps into the ground. Aside from naturally cleansing the water of pollutants, the garden also decreases erosion.

Creating a rain garden

Location: A rain garden should be at least 10 feet from all buildings because the water captured in its basin could erode foundations.

Soil test: To determine if you've chosen a suitable location, dig a 6-inch test hole and fill it with water. If it takes more than 24 hours for the water to soak into a ground, you need to find a location with more porous soil.

Additional information and how-to water garden manuals are available online from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (www.cbf.org/site/DocServer/rain_garden_guide-web.pdf?docID=2869) and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources: www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/wm/nps/rg/index.htm.

Native plants: Plants that are indigenous to a particular area are preferred for rain gardens as they should thrive in the local climate, are noninvasive and are reliable water filtrators. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service list of Maryland native plants is available online at www.nps.gov/plants/pubs/chesapeake.

-- Bob Allen

Moshi credited for producing safe, clean water

PETER TEMBA, Moshi
Daily News; Thursday,June 21, 2007 @00:04

TANZANIA Bureau of Standards (TBS) has awarded Moshi Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (MUWSA) a certificate for emerging second overall winner, countrywide, after Arusha, for production and supply of high quality clean and safe water to its customers.

Addressing a press conference here yesterday, MUWSA Chairperson, Ms Elizabeth Minde said the achievement attained was commendable as the licence indicated that the Authority's water supply satisfied the national quality standards number 789:2003 set by TBS.

She explained that the licence expires on February 25 next year but its validity could be extended in accordance with codes governing issuance of such licences.

Ms Minde said MUWSA was now eyeing for a similar award from International Standards Organisation which deals with Quality Management Systems in a broader perspective that include, among others, the whole process of water production and supply as well as manpower management.

She assured MUWSA clients that the Authority would continue to provide quality services that satisfy national and international standards so as to attain its vision of becoming the best Authority in Tanzania.

'"This can be achieved if we join hands in conserving water sources, guarding water supply network and report promptly to MUWSA wherever there were destruction, leakages or acts of sabotage against water supply network," she said.

Ms Minde also reminded Moshi residents who live adjacent to sewerage network to apply for sewerage services in order to conserve the environment on sustainable basis as well as ensure that they duly settle their water and sewerage bills to enable MUWSA continue to provide efficient and quality services to them.

She also thanked Moshi residents, public and private institutions for their shrewdness in using the available water while MUWSA was implementing the Water Sector Development Programme, which was launched last year and which is expected to reach its climax in 2025.

Water is money in the bank

Roger Pike
The Advertiser

Water not oil will be the key to our economic future.

Already 1.1 billion people lack access to adequate clean water and, with the world’s population set to grow from the current 6.5 billion to 8 billion by 2030, 1.8 billion people will face water scarcity by then, says the United Nations.

Climate change is expected to amount for about 20 percent of the global increase in water scarcity. The United Nations report says countries that already suffer from water shortages will be hardest hit. It goes on to say the severe droughts that now occur only once every 50 years would occur every other year by 2100. Water will be a precious resource.

While that may be good news for communities like Badger who experience flooding every winter the fact remains the world is running out of water. Newfoundland and Labrador is blessed with more than adequate water supplies at the moment but one has to wonder if we have the mindset to protect it. We take clean water for granted and while we can certainly sympathize with countries and provinces that don’t have surplus water I now wonder if there is a provincial or even municipal water conservation / protection strategy.

Closer to home we consume millions of gallons of water each day both in the papermaking process at the local paper mill and throughout the municipality. While Abitibi-Consolidated uses huge volumes of water on a daily basis most of that water is now recycled. The company has adopted a water conservation strategy in all of its paper mills and is moving forward in that area with positive results. So what do we do to conserve water? I’m willing to bet we will soon have our domestic water lines metered as a means to conserve.

Grand Falls-Windsor once took its drinking water from the Exploits River but with runoff from the Buchans mining tailings spilling into the system the powers to be selected a new site. Now the town’s main water supply is located at nearby New Bay Lake. I have to ask how New Bay Lake is protected from pollution and individuals using the watershed area? One has to wonder where the water of the future will come from if New Bay Lake is ever compromised. With water reserves declining worldwide maybe now is the time to plan a long term strategy although I have to admit it’s hard to think of water shortages when it’s raining.

Last summer while visiting family in Saskatchewan I saw first hand the plight farmers in that province have simply because it doesn’t rain.A dry summer could mean a crop failure worth millions of dollars. As I look at the road salt and mud on my new Honda I’m tempted not to wash it off and let nature do the job. But like most of us I have to admit I take water for granted and will probably wash it sooner than later. Maybe now is the time for all of us to reflect on how we use water in our daily lives.

Reflecting on the United Nations report that says warming temperatures might cause more intense droughts, storms, and crop destruction I’ve come to the conclusion that protecting and conserving our regional water supply is like money in the bank for all of us.

Clean Water from the Air

A company has come up with a large variation on the solar water distiller. The new device collects water-morning dew- on both sides of a large fabric inverted pyramid structure. The interior collected water is suitable for crop irrigation, and the water that collects underneath, being much cleaner, less dust, etc, is suitable for drinking. Because it can be made at low cost or with onsite scavenged materials, they say this is ideal for areas that have chronic lack of clean water or for emergency situations, where the product can be directly airdropped to people with no harm. One model they have, with 315 sq ft collecting surface, can garner 48 liters of water per day. They are working on possibly making the thing be built out of solar PV panels, making it dual purpose.
.."They are currently investigating embedding photovoltaic cells into the canvas to convert sunlight into electricity. The energy could be used to power electrical appliances or charge batteries. Or it could be used to cool the surface of the dew panels, which would allow the structure to produce water all day long."..more there
ed: I can attest the conventional "dig a pit, lay loose plastic, stone in the middle, collecting can at the bottom at the apex" type solar distiller works quite well, I have used them for my drinking water supplies before when any available surface water was pretty dodgy. And it scales quite well. So this thing should work. It's unique that it has dual collection though, and making one out of perhaps flexible solar panels is a stroke of inspiration, albeit you'll have to fool with the angles and placement somewhat.

Japan signs clean water deal

(13-06-2007)

HA NOI — Japanese Ambassador Naro Hattori and Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat yesterday signed an agreement to carry out a project on underground water development to supply clean water to three provinces in the Central Highlands.

Japan will provide US$18.14 million to carry out the $20.4 million project from 2006-2010 in five communes in Kon Tum, Gia Lai and Dak Lak provinces.

When completed, the project will supply clean water to 45,000 people in those localities.

The project will help drill wells, build a system to sterilise and supply water to local people. It will also transfer underground water tapping technology to local workers.

According to Minister Phat the project will contribute to helping Viet Nam fulfil the national goals of clean water and environmental hygiene in rural areas, especially in the Central Highlands, which enjoys a priority in the Government’s strategy on poverty reduction and growth. — VNS

Church leaders in call for clean water

Sunday, 10th June 2007. 7:31am

By: George Conger.

CHURCH leaders attending the “Churches for Water in Africa” summit in Entebbe, Uganda, last week urged governments and NGOs to honour their commitments to bring clean drinking water to the people of the developing world.

Drawn from 19 African countries, Europe and the Americas, the 70 delegates called for a “just and sustainable provision of water to the poor and the most excluded” and for governments to “make water and sanitation a strong component of national budgets.”

"We are deeply concerned that in spite of all the promises made in the context of the Millennium development Goals, in rural Africa, 65 per cent of the population still lack access to an adequate supply of water, and 73 per cent lack access to adequate sanitation," the final communiqué stated. Without the hard work of building water and sanitation infrastructures, “poverty can never be overcome” in Africa they said at the close of the May 21-25 conference.

"Our sharing of experiences revealed that water supply, sanitation and protection of the environment should never be separated, but worked on in a holistic approach," said the conference organised by the Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) in co-operation with the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC), the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) and the Uganda-based Agency for Corporation and Research in Development (ACCORD).

South African Bishop Geoff Davies, the former Bishop of Umzimvubu and a leader of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, reminded the conference "everything God created is good and has value. We make a mistake of thinking God is only concerned about us at our peril.”

Bishop Davies, the executive director of the Southern Africa Faith Communities' Environment Institute warned of the folly of separating the health of the planet from the health of mankind. "If the natural environment does not survive, we won't," he said.

Humanity faced extinction if it despoiled creation. "We must remember water is an integral part of the natural environment and we must look after the totality of the natural environment, if we are to survive and if we are to have clean water," Bishop Davies said.

On June 1, actress Hilary Swank (pictured) launched an around-the-world relay race to raise funds and public awareness for the 1.1 billion people lacking safe drinking water. Organised by the Blue Planet Run Foundation and the UN and funded by Dow Chemical, some 20 runners will race 15,000 miles across the United States, Britain, from France to China and then by plane to Canada.

"What if it were your job to carry in a rusty metal pail all the water you and your family would use for the day?" Swank told an audience outside the UN in Manhattan. "What if the water made you sick? What if you had no choice? "I know I will never take a glass of water for granted again," said Swank, known for her best-actress Oscars for her roles in "Boys Don't Cry" and "Million Dollar Baby”.

California City Battles 'Plume of Contamination'

Buried deep beneath mounds of dust and landfill in the city of Rialto, California lies a legacy some wish could stay buried forever. But that legacy—a chemical left over from spent rocket fuel—has now surfaced as a potentially dangerous pollutant in drinking water.

That chemical is perchlorate, an ion present in salts. Since perchlorate was detected in water wells near Rialto in 1997, residents have been paying to remove it from their drinking water.

In this primarily black and Latino city of 100,000, families pay as much as an extra 15 percent on their water bills as a "perchlorate surcharge." So far these charges have added up to $6.6 million since 2002.

"It's a working class community," says Davin Dias of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice. "When you're living paycheck to paycheck, the last thing you need is a perchlorate surcharge on your bill."

This money is being used not only to treat the drinking water to remove perchlorate, but also to hire lawyers and researchers to seek financial remediation from the alleged polluters.

Interestingly, it is the city of Rialto itself that has taken the lead on the issue, making it one of the city's top priorities. It has hired a legal team to sue what it believes are the responsible companies—rocket, missile, and fireworks manufacturers that have occupied land atop the region's massive underground water basin.

A History of Rocket-Making

The story of perchlorate in Rialto begins in the early 1940s, just after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Department of Defense, then called the Department of War, decided to move its munitions storage away from the coast. Thus, Rialto, about 60 miles inland from Los Angeles, became one of America's most important munitions storage and distribution centers during World War II.

At that time, the U.S. government built railroads for transport and munitions bunkers for storage. After the war, the government divided up the land and sold it to various companies.

The presence of railroads and bunkers made the land very attractive to rocket manufacturers. One of the first was BF Goodrich, a contractor for the Department of Defense. According to documents from the city of Rialto's legal team, BF Goodrich used the land from 1957–1964 for rocket manufacturing and testing. The rocket propellant contained perchlorate.

Over the next four decades, the land and two adjacent parcels were sold and resold to over a dozen different companies, many of which also manufactured and tested rockets or fireworks containing perchlorate.

Until recently, it was common to burn excess fuel in open burn pits. Yet because combustion is rarely 100 percent complete, over time perchlorate residue built up. Bill Hunt, a geologist contracted by Rialto, says that during rains, especially during the occasional heavy flooding, perchlorate from these burn pits dissolved and seeped deep into the ground.

A Polluted Basin

The Rialto Water Basin is like a massive underground reservoir underneath the city and surrounding region. The water sits amidst a layer of sand that is from 500 to 1,000 feet below the surface, between layers of clay and bedrock. This wet sand stretches horizontally across 30 square miles. An underground basin is a valuable natural resource because its water is not subject to evaporation, earthquakes, or floods. It can store water that can be easily extracted during droughts or whenever it is needed.

Before 1997, the Rialto Basin was believed to have exceptionally high water quality. Yet now testing indicates that perchlorate has slowly seeped into this basin, spreading into an oblong-shaped plume about two miles wide and six miles long. Like a slowly-expanding plume of smoke, the perchlorate contamination spreads underwater at a rate of three feet per day, estimates geologist Bill Hunt. That's about two miles per decade.

While perchlorate can occasionally occur naturally in low concentrations, in Rialto water wells, it has been found in concentrations over 100 times higher.

And it is not just Rialto. Perchlorate has contaminated more than 360 drinking water wells across California, 82 of which are in San Bernardino County where Rialto is located. Susan Trager, one of the lawyers contracted by Rialto for her groundwater expertise, believes that there is potential perchlorate pollution in every location the Department of Defense or its contractors have manufactured rockets—hundreds of sites across the country.

A Dangerous Chemical?

Perchlorate is an ion that bonds with other molecules to form salts like potassium perchlorate and ammonium perchlorate. These are very different from ordinary table salt; they are used in rocket fuel, allowing it to burn without oxygen. Like other salts, perchlorate salts dissolve in water. In Rialto's case, dissolved perchlorate has been seeping into the underground water basin for decades.

There is intense debate over how much danger perchlorate poses to human health. Perchlorate is known to affect the function of the thyroid gland, which is responsible for hormones that regulate metabolism, body temperature, and growth.

Yet no one knows just what the long-term risks of perchlorate might be, or what a dangerous concentration of perchlorate is.

Concentrations are measured in parts per billion, or ppb. One part per billion is roughly equivalent to half a teaspoon of substance in an Olympic-sized swimming pool (660,000 gallons).

The Department of Health Services recently issued a proposal that the maximum safe level of perchlorate in drinking water should be 6 ppb. In 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggested the anything over 3.5 ppb might be dangerous, but it has since raised that figure to 24.5 ppb. On the other hand, the Council on Water Quality, an organization funded by rocket manufacturers that may wish to avoid liability, has a wildly different figure. It claims that concentrations of at least 14,000 ppb are needed to cause adverse health effects. The discrepancy between the Department of Health Services' and the rocket industry-funded numbers is the difference between one tablespoon versus two five-gallon jugs poured into an Olympic swimming pool.

Unsure of which numbers to go by, in 2005 the city of Rialto issued a zero-tolerance policy, meaning it will not tolerate any detectable levels of perchlorate in drinking water. The city believes, based on testimony from various health experts, that perchlorate exposure poses a danger to fetuses and young children, including health complications and mental development problems. That's why they are suing the allegedly responsible companies, asking them to pay not only for the current water treatment, but also for the eventual cleanup of the entire Rialto Basin. If successful, the City of Rialto will also pay back to its residents every cent they have spent on perchlorate removal and legal fees.

Davin Dias of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice says that, while more studies on perchlorate's effects on human health are in order, one thing is for sure: "I just know I don't want rocket fuel in my water."


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Copyright 2000 - 2007 Epoch Times International

Volunteers bring water purification systems to Moss Point churches

MOSS POINT -- Clean, healthy water should be available to everyone, regardless of where they live or how much money they have.

That's the belief of the Rev. Jim Cluney, production manager for International Water Management, and a group of volunteers who visited Moss Point to make that water available to people who need it.

His group of volunteers from Iowa and Wisconsin brought the city four portable water purification systems on Wednesday that take dingy, foul-smelling and tasting tap water and turns it into water that people want to drink, Cluney said.

"My heart is to help other cities," Cluney said Wednesday afternoon.

International Water is a faith-based subsidiary of Hays Water Science LLC based in Washington, Iowa. Its mission is to provide safe drinking water to the world.

The systems, set up at Calling All Christians Church, Community of Christ Church and behind City Hall, use a 12-volt charge to create a chlorine solution out of water and table salt. That solution is then added to the available water supply, which kills any bacteria. Both churches have promised to use their new source of clean water to help those in need.

Cluney, also a pastor of the First Assembly of God Church in Washington, said the way he and the company's products came to Moss Point was nothing short of a miracle.

The journey to Moss Point started with one person from Wisconsin on a local work crew, who tasted the water and told his brother, a pastor in Wisconsin, about it. The news of the area's water spread from person to person until it reached Cluney.

What resulted was a joint effort involving 35 businesses, Cluney's church and All Grace Community Church in Wisconsin that raised $4,500 for the systems, Cluney said.

"Literally, hundreds of people are involved in this," Cluney said.

Volunteers from Iowa and Wisconsin started driving at 4:30 a.m. Monday and arrived in Moss Point 18 hours later, bringing with them four portable water purification systems.

The Rev. Otis Hardy of Community of Christ said the water tastes as good as it looks.

"We've been drinking water all day," Hardy said, laughing.

The system is located at his house, but it's meant to be shared, Hardy said. Anyone in the community can come by his house at 4612 General Ike St. with a water container and leave with it full of good-tasting water.

Hardy said he knows that some poor people have no choice but to drink the city's water, and he wants to use this as another way to reach out to the community. Hardy said he has also been out in his neighborhood, delivering clean water to some of the elderly people in the community.

"Our people can't afford the bottled water," Hardy said.

The Rev. Palma Chandler with Calling All Christians echoed Hardy's goal to use the system to minister to the entire community.

Chandler's church operates God's Kitchen at 5817 Shortcut Road, which feeds lunch to more than 100 people each Tuesday and Thursday.

The system will provide clean water for that purpose, as well as to anyone from the general public who wants it, Chandler said.

Chandler said it could also be used to purify water after a hurricane, and he looks forward to working with International Water businessmen and ministers to bring more units to the area.

"We need good, clean drinking water, especially in this area," Chandler said.

Cluney said he hopes to raise more money and return with more of the water systems. The portable systems have been distributed in third world countries in Africa, but Cluney said it's a shame that some people in the United States still deal with dirty drinking water.

"God has called us to minister to people in need, and water is one of the greatest needs," Cluney said.

Reporter Amber Craig can be reached at acraig@themississippipress.com or (228) 934-1428.

UN centre aims for safe water worldwide

By Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jun 7, 2007)
The lack of safe, clean water kills three million people every year and causes illness in another three billion.

The world's water experts are roaring for action, but is anyone listening?

Few in the developed world where clean water is plentiful know, for example, that the United Nations has a think-tank on water issues, and that it operates in Hamilton under the wing of McMaster University. It's the UN's only international program in Ontario, and the reason the UN flag flies at its downtown offices and at City Hall.

United Nations University's International Network on Water, Environment and Health -- INWEH -- operates on the first floor of McMaster's Downtown Centre in the old county courthouse, where a permanent staff of 11 develop international networks to promote research, training and action on water and sanitation issues in the developing world.

The agency's mandate is to transfer the knowledge that exists in rich countries to the poor countries that need it most. Hamilton is its home because it is a continental hub of knowledge on issues from desertification to watershed management and pollution control -- partly because of its proximity to the Canada Centre for Inland Waters.

INWEH's founding director, Ralph Daley, is among scientists trying to get the world to understand that the lack of clean water for consumption and sanitation is a crisis far more imminent and much simpler to resolve than global warming. The UN says more than 1.2 billion people lack access to safe water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.

Daley, who retired as director last year and now works for INWEH part-time, says money can solve the water crisis. It would take the equivalent of what North Americans and Europeans spend on pop every year, he said. About 10 cents a day for every person in the developed world could, in 10 years, provide clean water to parts of the world that are dying without it, he said.

"When you've seen the horror, frankly, of the worst situations in the developing world, it's really, really frustrating," said Daley, who holds a PhD in water and aquatic ecology. "It's depressing as hell, because water isn't a complicated issue."

Getting the agency going 10 years ago was a chicken-and-egg job, convincing governments in poor countries to accept offers of practical, educational and policy help while at the same time getting experts from governments and universities in prosperous countries to provide that help, all in what was initially a tenuous funding climate.

Today, after $40 million in projects in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere, the situation is reversed, as partners come to them, and funding is much more stable. The Canadian government funds INWEH's $1 million in annual operations. It largely goes into generating other money and services that drive its projects.

INWEH manages to leverage about $9 in other spending and support for every $1 it receives in direct funding -- a multiplier largely made possible by running a lean operation here.

In its first decade, INWEH generated a considerable international profile. INWEH continues to grow, especially with plans to move to larger quarters in the new McMaster Innovation Park on Longwood Road, which could foster more interaction and more research involving McMaster scientists.

"I think it is extremely important work," said Peter George, president of McMaster University, INWEH's host. "The mission that INWEH has and McMaster's capacity to support it will become even more important."

Zafar Adeel, an environmental engineer and adjunct professor in civil engineering at McMaster who took over as the agency's director last July, hopes to make INWEH the international "go-to" institution on water policy.

"We hear a lot about climate change, but a much more immediate, much more drastic and much more damaging crisis relates to the availability of water," Adeel said. "We hope that (we) can become a major player in addressing those issues."

Some of INWEH's projects:

z Research to determine sources,

effects and solutions for arsenic contamination in China and South Asia, where more than 50 million people drink arsenic-poisoned water.

z Developing new approaches to sanitation and new materials for septic wells in the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil, -- a project in which the University of Waterloo is a partner.

z Research and monitoring of the

consequences of Dubai's massive man-made islands that form The Palm, the world's largest waterfront development, in the Arabian Gulf.

z Development of the Water Virtual Learning Centre, providing long-distance education on water-management for developing countries.

INWEH, the World Health Organization and McMaster University are hosting an international workshop called Improving Global Health through Safe

Water from Saturday through Monday. Sessions are free and open to the

public. Information is available on the Internet by following the links from www.inweh.unu.edu.

CRC NEWS: Agency Sponsors Run for Clean Water

From "Henry Hess"
Date Thu, 7 Jun 2007 12:31:09 -0400


Grand Rapids, Mich., June 7, 2007 - Everyone knows that water is critical to survival. Yet while most people in North America take safe, clean water for granted, in some other parts of the world people know that it is a luxury.

Just ask renowned Kenyan runners Daniel Komen and Luke Kibet. This spring, Kibet and Komen visited West Michigan to compete in local races as champions for the Clean Water Initiative of Partners Worldwide.

The two men are key supporters of the Sustainable Clean Water Initiative, a major project in Kenya that is spearheaded by Partners Worldwide, a Grand Rapids-based organization that helps Christian business people to work together to improve the lives of people in communities around the world.

"We're in the business of facilitating business partnerships and solutions like the Sustainable Clean Water Initiative, which we hope will make clean water available and affordable, especially for the rural families in Kenya," notes Partners executive director Doug Seebeck.

"While these great athletes hoped to beat their records, their primary goal was neither personal glory nor financial reward," said Denny Hoekstra, a Partners Worldwide member and one of the people behind the Sustainable Clean Water Initiative in Kenya. "They donated their time and talents to improve the lives of the poor in Kenya."

Komen is the only man to achieve back-to-back sub-four minute miles on his way to clocking a world record 7:58.61 for two miles. He runs a 3:46 mile and holds the indoor 3000-meter record. Kibet is the 2005 and 2006 champion of the ING Taipei International Marathon and a three time winner of the Nashville Country Music Marathon.

"These runners are a part of our Kenyan team through one of our affiliates in Kenya, the Reformed Church of Africa," said Hoekstra

During their three-week visit to West Michigan, the athletes trained with local running groups and visited other area organizations about the imperative global need for safe, clean water - and what it's like to live without it.

Komen and Kibet spent three weeks giving presentations and visiting with schools, Rotary Clubs, churches and other organizations to raise awareness and funds for the work of Partners Worldwide.

The availability of safe water is a worldwide environmental issue. Research shows that 1.2 billion people in the world do not have access to clean water and rely on rainfall, polluted ponds and unsanitary shallow wells for drinking water. As a result, thousands of people become sick or die each year from preventable water-borne diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and parasitic infections.

"So many organizations focus on food security and not on water," notes Hoekstra, "which is why Partners Worldwide is putting water in the forefront. Our work in Western Kenya answers the need of a rural community of 5,000 men, women and children. Many of these people don't even have the resources to boil water, let alone the money to buy the wood needed to heat it. We're changing all that."

Phase I of the Sustainable Clean Water Initiative will provide the resources for a chlorinator to be housed on the campus of one of the affiliates of Partners Worldwide. The chlorinator cleans and filters large amounts of water, making it safe to drink without boiling.

In Phase II, Partners Worldwide hopes to introduce locally manufactured bio-sand filters into western Kenyan homes and communities.

Partners Worldwide is working with other organizations such as the Grandville Rotary Club, International Aid and Water Missions International.

Partners Worldwide is a network of Christian business and professional people who use their knowledge and experience to impact poverty around the world, in partnership with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), an agency of the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

For more information on the Clean Water Initiative, contact Denny Hoekstra at (616) 977-2624 or Matt Van Til at (616) 224-5874. To learn more about Partners Worldwide, visit www.partnersworldwide.org
Henry Hess

Director of Communication

Christian Reformed Church

To learn more about the Christian Reformed Church visit us at www.crcna.org

Tennessee mother swims European rivers to promote cleaner water

June 2007
U.S. Water News Online

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- For Mimi Hughes, swimming isn't just a hobby or a way to get some exercise. She swims to change the world.

Ten years ago, the reading teacher from Tennessee swam from Alaska to Russia across the icy, treacherous waters of the Bering Strait to inspire peace between the countries.

She completed a five-year quest in 2003 to swim the entire Tennessee River to show what happens when herbicides, pesticides, litter and other pollutants end up in rivers and streams.

Last summer Hughes swam the Danube, and this year she will swim 500 miles down the Drava and Mura rivers in Eastern Europe to promote cleaner waterways. Her swim was set to begin in Austria, and she will swim through Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary before ending in Serbia on June 28.

"Change has to come from us -- because it certainly isn't likely to come top down," said the 51-year-old mother of four, who didn't begin to swim seriously until her early 30s.

During her latest swim, Hughes will make stops along the way to speak to groups and audiences about environmental responsibility.

Hughes, who lives in Taft, a small town on the Alabama state line about 95 miles south of Nashville, is a developmental reading teacher for college and high school students. She said she was inspired to motivate people after carrying the Olympic Torch in 1996.

"It's (swimming rivers) more effective than me staying home and complaining about it to my kids," Hughes quipped.

Hughes also considers this year's swim on the Drava and Mura rivers as a memorial to a recently deceased World Wildlife Fund employee who helped her during the