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 Danube swim.

Hughes opposes dams built along the rivers because they destroy wetlands and fishermen depend on the rivers for their livelihood. Hydropower plants and gravel extraction along the Drava are also threats, she said.

Hughes says she's paid for much of the cost associated with the swims, but did receive a $10,000 grant from the Balance Bar food company which went toward food, hotels, airfare and publicizing her Danube swim.

She's also depended on the kindness of strangers. During her 90-day, 1,777-mile swim down the Danube, people along the river often offered her food and a place to stay, she said.

Hughes' daughter, 21-year-old Kelsey, also kept her going on her swims on the Danube and Tennessee rivers, paddling along next to her in a kayak to help her avoid litter and other debris in the rivers.

She said her toughest swim yet has been on the Danube because of whirlpools that would yank her under, the danger of hypothermia and swimming through untreated sewage and other pollutants in the river.

Hughes, who wears a wetsuit on all of her swims, said she can often smell pollutants in the water but can't usually see them.

"The hard part was having your face in the water for hours at a time," said Hughes, who spent an average of 6-8 hours in the water each day on the Danube.

Despite the dangers to her health, Hughes said she felt compelled to make the Danube swim partly because she believed a lot of people outside the U.S. didn't think the country cared about the environment.

"Absolutely everybody should be passionate about the environment. It's our life. If you truly care about people, then you're going to make sure they don't drink water that's going to harm them or breath air that's going to hurt them."

Hilary Swank kicks off global race for clean water

New York, June 3 Two-time Oscar winner, Hilary Swank recently launched an around-the-world relay race to raise money and create awareness for 1.1 billion people without safe drinking water.

Organised by the Blue Planet Run Foundation, some 20 runners will log 15,000 miles over 95 days through 16 northern hemisphere countries and end back in New York on September 4. “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 asked the audience on the United Nations lawn of runners, schoolchildren and musicians. “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 who was awarded the best-actress Oscars for her roles in ‘Boys Don’t Cry’ and ‘Million Dollar Baby.’

Funded by Dow Chemical Company in cooperation with the United Nations and Blue Planet, the goal is to bring safe drinking water to 20 billion people by 2020. The cost, said Blue Planet founder and chairman, Mr Jin Zidell, was only $30 per person for life. The runners are to travel 15,200 miles, with each running 750 miles and keeping the pace for 24 hours, seven days a week.

From New York, the runners go to Boston, fly to Ireland, run across Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Russia, Mongolia, China and take a plane to Japan and another one back to San Francisco for a final lap into Canada and 20 states of America.

Clean-water win, if the state agrees

By Sally Swartz

Palm Beach Post editorial writer

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Up in Florida's Panhandle, a test awaits Gov. Crist's Department of Environmental Protection.

Will Secretary Michael Sole uphold a ruling that, finally, makes a paper mill stop polluting once-pristine Perdido Bay? This month, an administrative law judge denied the world's largest paper company, International Paper, a permit to build a discharge pipe to the bay and told the DEP to make the firm obey clean-water rules.

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If Mr. Sole agrees with the judge, it will signal that Gov. Crist means to make polluters accountable. If Mr. Sole overrides the judge's recommendation - as he can - the "new" DEP's credo will remain "business as usual."

International Paper got statewide attention in 2004, after Gov. Jeb Bush's DEP secretary, David Struhs, engineered a public bailout for the private polluter. Then, Mr. Struhs quit the agency to become International Paper's vice president of environmental affairs. It was a natural transition in more ways than that. One year earlier, Mr. Struhs supported the legislation that extended by 10 years the deadline for cleaning up the Everglades.

Mr. Struhs started helping International Paper in 2000, after it bought the mill near Pensacola. The mill, under several owners, has failed to meet state water-quality standards since 1989 and dumps millions of gallons of waste daily into nearby waterways. A Web site - www.friendsofperdidobay.com/ - shows photos of the mill's dirty foam and scum on beaches. The state never has strictly enforced pollution rules for the mill, which employs almost 1,000 people.

Mr. Struhs arranged a $56 million, low-interest loan, administered by the DEP, to a utilities authority for a sewage treatment plant and pipeline to the mill, which then would send treated waste to "experimental" wetlands. The money he funneled ordinarily would have been used to help small governments with water cleanup projects. It was hard to tell which was worse: the deal itself, or the fact that the public would be paying for it.

The deal was approved in October 2002. A year later, Mr. Struhs recused himself from dealing with International Paper because the firm was trying to hire him. He left the DEP for his new job in February 2004. That year, the DEP signed off on the plan to pipe 23 million gallons of waste daily to 1,500 acres of wetlands, which were supposed to filter the polluted water before it enters the bay.

But on May 11, Florida Administrative Law Judge Bram Canter recommended that the DEP deny International Paper's request to build the 10-mile pipeline to the wetlands. In essence, the judge's decision negates the sweetheart deal Mr. Struhs engineered at the public's expense. With that decision, the judge also said that whether a pipeline is built or not, International Paper's discharges don't meet water-quality standards and denied the experimental use of wetlands.

Mr. Struhs, contacted Tuesday at International Paper's Memphis office, said, "The judge obviously erred." International Paper is appealing the decision. "In any other part of the world," he said, "International Paper's efforts to clean up would be celebrated and win some awards." He said he believes the judge's decision is "not consistent with DEP's own rules."

Stuart environmental lawyer Howard Heims argued the case before Judge Canter for Friends of Perdido Bay and the James Lane family, which has fought since the 1950s to stop the paper mill from dumping its waste into the bay. Obviously, Mr. Lane is pleased with the ruling. But he has celebrated other legal victories, sat on committees that recommended cleanup, and then watched the DEP transfer regulators or polluters recruit them.

The Clean Water Network (www.cleanwaternetwork-fl.org/), a coalition of environmental groups, is urging Floridians to write Gov. Crist. If the DEP backs the judge and makes the paper mill clean up, the agency will set a precedent for making other major polluters statewide do the same. That would be a great victory for Florida's waters.

Darfur: bringing vital water relief to isolated rural areas

Access to water is an ongoing concern for the people of Darfur, particularly during the dry season. Alleviating water shortages is an urgent matter for the ICRC. The overall aim of the organization is to help residents in remote rural areas become self-sufficient, so that they will not have to move to overcrowded camps in search of aid.


The Darfur conflict has severely disrupted the lives of millions of people, with cruel consequences on their livelihoods. At the beginning of the conflict, there were massive human displacements. People in rural areas had no choice but to run for their lives to camps on the outskirts of poor urban centres.

Although more than two million people fled to these camps, many others managed to stay in their villages and tried to find ways to cope on their own with the daily challenge just to survive. In order to avoid further displacement, the ICRC aims to help people to sustain their livelihoods in remote villages. Oré is one such village.

Preparation is key

Planning is required before going to the village. Safe access to Oré is a priority. Before the team goes out to the field, security guarantees from all sides taking part in the conflict remains essential for the ICRC to be able to work safely. A truck providing enough room to carry all the necessary equipment and spare parts to rehabilitate water hand pumps is ready in advance. Once everything is organized, the ICRC team of engineers and technicians is prepared to leave.

Oré village is located near the town of Abata, more than an hour's drive north of Zalingei in West Darfur. It has almost 150 huts and 650 inhabitants. The road to Oré is cut off by wide seasonal rivers that are now dry, as the rainy season does not start until June.

Because of the sandy roads, the village is only accessible by donkey carts, 4 X 4 vehicles and trucks. On the way to Oré, the landscape reveals ruins of villages dispersed on both sides of the road as a sign of what the conflict has done to Darfur during the past four years.

Repairing water pumps

During the current dry season, almost all riverbeds have dried up in West Darfur. In the smaller villages, a drop of water is worth its weight in gold. This is what sheik Abdul Karim Adam Abakar from Oré village immediately points out. "Before the conflict started four years ago, we had our own livestock: sheep, cows and camels. People were happy in this village. Now life is difficult. What is most important for all of us is water. We desperately need access to safe water."

In Oré, the only water hand pump the rural community possessed was broken at the beginning of January. When it had stopped working, the villagers approached the health clinic in Abata to explain to a Red Crescent volunteer what had happened. While they waited for the ICRC's water team to come and repair it, they had to dig into the riverbed more than a metre in order to find water.

During the collection, the water is usually secondarily contaminated as people stand inside the hole with their feet, or the water is collected with cups that are not clean, or with dirty hands. "It requires a lot of time and effort to get a few litres of water for the daily needs of a family in the village. And many times the water produces disease amongst our people," Abdul added.

As soon as the ICRC team arrived in Oré, dozens of kids came running to welcome the newcomers. They knew something big was going to happen that hot afternoon, so they sat down under the shadow of the ICRC truck and waited patiently until the hand pump was repaired.

As soon as they saw the first drops, they all gathered around the pump, extending their tiny hands to drink clean water and wash their faces. Some of them rushed to their homes and brought back jerry cans and bowls to fill them. "On average, the minimum water for survival is 15 litres per person per day. Being able to repair the water hand pump is very important for the residents of Oré," explained Moubarak Abdulrahman, an ICRC engineer.

When the water started running through the pump, both the ICRC's water team and the residents of Oré were happy and satisfied. "This is an additional encouragement for the ICRC to do more, not just for this village but for others as well. The children's smiles constitute the most encouraging factor for us to continue to do our job," said Biserka Pop-Stefanija, an ICRC water engineer.

Harsh competition for resources

The majority of the population in Darfur are nomad pastoralists or farmers. Pastoralists make their living from their camels, goats, sheep and cows. As a result of the conflict, they have become impoverished because of restricted access to traditional migration routes, pasture and water, the looting of livestock and the disruption of veterinary services.

For farmers the situation is no better. The lack of security has restricted their movements and interrupted their agriculture, trade and services. This is the case in Oré village. "Although last year's harvest was decent, we are concerned that we may run out of food. And we are afraid that something may happen to us at anytime. This is our home, our life is here. We have a house. We have a family. We have land. I cannot leave my village. I cannot change my home. We want to live a normal life, but we cannot," says Sheik Abdul, with regret.

"The villagers welcome the ICRC team and they talk about their problems. The main concern for all of them is the lack of security. The armed conflict in Darfur has an impact not only on their daily life, but also on their future," concluded Biserka.

Bishop pours out the water of life in Africa

May 19 2007

Pressure is being put on G8 finance ministers meeting this weekend to honour their promise to boost aid to the world’s poorest countries. Here the Bishop of St Davids, the Rt Rev Carl Cooper, who has just returned from Uganda, describes why help is needed there and what Welsh churches are doing to help

WHOOPS of joy and dances of celebration broke out in the dusty street as I turned on a tap and cold, clean water splashed into the bucket beneath.

Water is never something we’ve made a huge song and dance about in West Wales where we get more than our fare share of rain, but here in Kabayese, in the countryside of Uganda, it was enough to inspire dancing in the streets and down the aisles.

It was my privileged task to commission two new gravity water schemes which will change peoples’ lives in this part of Africa. They will also change my life – never again will I take for granted the blessing of clean water on tap. Seeing the joyful and enthusiastic singing and dancing as the villagers gave thanks for their single, communal water tap will remain one of my most cherished memories.

The schemes, in the Anglican diocese of Kigezi, have earned international acclaim. The Rev Canon George Bagamunda, head of the water team, recently met with Hilary Benn to discuss how the UK Government can offer its help and support. I would like to think that our Welsh Assembly could also consider this forgotten part of the world when prioritising its international aid.

I had been invited to Uganda by an old friend of West Wales. George Katetswigye, a Ugandan priest, who came to study for a Master of Philosophy degree in Cardiff in 1990 and subsequently served as a parish priest for a few years in Llanfyrnach and Llanglydwen, in the Diocese of St Davids.




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Following his return to Uganda, George’s gifts were soon recognised and he was elected Bishop of Kigezi, a post he has held for 10 years. His fondness for Wales and his friendship with St Davids Diocese has gone from strength to strength and he has encouraged links between parishes, communities and individuals of the two dioceses. At Bishop George’s invitation, I was privileged to visit the diocese of Kigezi.


The Diocese of Kigezi is located in the southwestern corner of Uganda, 300km south of the equator. It corresponds with the Kabale District, one of the 56 administrative districts within the country. The Diocese covers a total land area of 1,827 sq km and has a population of 461,785 people. Kabale is one of the highland districts of Uganda at an altitude ranging from 1500 to 2500m above sea level. The beautiful hills and Lake Bunyoni have led to the area being known fondly as “The Switzerland of Africa”, though its similarity to certain parts of Wales is also striking. On occasions I thought I could have been looking at the Preseli hills or the Brecon Beacons.


Kigezi Diocese is known for two things – the vibrant faith of its people and its service of the community. We witnessed much poverty and deprivation. It was heart-breakingly humbling to be with people whose stomachs were distended because of lack of food, whose clothes were dirty rags and who walked for many miles to collect unclean water that would probably make them ill, or even threaten their lives. During Bishop George’s time in Cardiff he needed to see a chiropodist, who was amazed at the fact that he was incapable of curling his toes. The reason was that, like most people of his area, he was 15 years old before he got his first pair of shoes.


Housing conditions in Kigezi amount to no more than a shack with a corrugated iron roof. Although the Ugandan authorities will speak of free primary education and free health care, the reality is very different. Pupils are still expected to buy school uniforms and requisites eg books, pencils. This immediately puts education beyond the reach of the vast majority.


The cost of medicines and the obligatory payment for hospital consultations result in even a very basic heath care provision being beyond the financial capability of almost everyone. Many are orphaned by the Aids pandemic sweeping Africa. I was privileged to visit a centre for Aids orphans run by a Christian organisation called ‘Compassion International’. Here the children rejoiced because they had food to eat and an opportunity to learn useful skills. They considered themselves the lucky ones. Many came from so-called ‘child headed families’, where both parents had died of Aids and the household was under the care of the oldest child, sometimes as young as 9 or 10.


The Church in Kigezi is in the business of providing education, health clinics and clean water. It was wonderful to discover that the local MP, Mr David Bahati, also had a Masters degree from the University of Wales and had spent time studying in Cardiff. Wales’ influence often stretches further than we realise.


At a mid-week service in Kacereere, a very rural village, 3,000 people attended and made the place come alive with their characteristic dancing and singing. We were joined by a local tribe of pygmies, who walked for hours from their jungle home to be part of our celebrations. My new claim to fame is to be the only bishop in Wales who has danced with pygmies.


Everywhere we went, church congregations were counted in thousands. Acts of worship lasted for four hours and longer. Spirituality and faith values were accepted as central to public life as well as in private devotion. Our political and civic leaders in the UK and Wales need to appreciate that most of the world has not relegated religion to the private sphere of lifestyle choices.


As Christians we often remind ourselves that Christ is particularly found in the poor and needy. I return from Uganda knowing that God has revealed himself to me in a very special and challenging way in the wonderful and beautiful people I was honoured to meet. Although I am comparatively wealthy in the things of this world, I have become acutely aware of my and our poverty of spirit. It should be easy for me to share of my worldly wealth with my fellow women and men in Uganda. I trust I will also have the courage and humility to receive their gifts of spiritual generosity.


It was a particular pleasure to learn enough Wachiga in order to lead certain bits of public addresses. Consequently, may my last words be words given me by my Ugandan brother and sisters – Mwebale munonga kur kwa chira erizova om’li omu Obureberezi Kigezi (Diolch o galon am eich croeso cynnes yn esgobaeth Kigezi / Thank you very much for your warm welcome in Kigezi Diocese).


***** A 21-25 May conference in Entebbe, Uganda, to be opened by Uganda's minister of water and environment, will discuss the role of churches in the face of the African water crisis.


The conference, says Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) coordinator Maike Gorsboth, is about “the churches' role in providing water and sanitation to communities, but also about how churches can address the political, social and economic conditions that underlie water access problems. It will explore how we, as churches, can help to make people's God-given right to water a reality".

U.S. Congress Examines Drinking Water Crisis in Africa

USAID official cites $91 million spent on programs
Washington -- Millions of people in Africa are stricken with preventable diseases every year because they lack what the developed world takes for granted -- clean drinking water.

The why, how and where of providing what many in the West see as the bedrock of sustainable development were examined at a May 16 hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa.

"Africa is one of the most water-impoverished regions ... and the lack of clean water claims the lives of 4,900 children every day," Subcommittee Chairman Donald Payne said.

Lack of clean water worldwide, but especially in Africa, is "a global crisis," Payne said.

Walter North, senior deputy assistant administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) agreed, adding, that the United States is working with African partners to meet U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets set to reduce by half by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water.

"More than one child in sub-Saharan Africa dies every minute from diarrheal disease -- a direct result of inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene," North said.

To provide clean water, North said, USAID was funding water-supply activities and hygiene programs worth $91.6 million for the 2006-2007 fiscal year in more than 30 African countries.

For 2007-2008, he said USAID plans to spend $8 million more on clean water efforts in Africa focusing on three main program areas:


A boy in South Africa drinks clean water from a communal faucet. (USAID photo)• Improving governance and regulation of water utilities at local, national and regional levels;

• Changing hygiene behavior with an emphasis on hand washing, filtration and purification of water and maintenance of personal sanitation facilities such as latrines; and

• Mobilizing local private-sector financing to build and support projects such as capped wells and piped water systems to supply clean water.

A particular strength of USAID water programs in Africa, North said, is the "leveraging of significant" funding from the private sector. Domestic capital is available in Africa, he said, but the problem is finding good "bankable" projects and getting business partners interested in helping fund them.

In that regard, USAID has had a number of successes, the official said, including a funding partnership scheme for water improvement in West Africa with the Hilton (hotel) Foundation (the West African Water Initiative), the Coca Cola Company (Community Watershed Partnerships Program) and the Case Foundation (the PlayPumps Alliance).

North singled out the PlayPumps project as an especially productive combination of appropriate technology with community ownership -- critical ingredients to the sustainability of clean water projects like community wells.

The PlayPumps Global Development Alliance, he explained, is a $60 million public-private partnership among USAID, foundations and the South African company PlayPumps International. The device is a merry-go-round that pumps water to the surface from a capped well as children play on it.

North said the goal of the USAID partnership with PlayPumps was to place 4,000 of the innovative water pumps in schools and villages by the year 2010. Part of the costs of the pumps and wells are recouped through advertising displayed on the water towers built to store the water.

In addition to providing clean water and "valuable play equipment," North told lawmakers the PlayPumps have proved effective in promoting "improved sanitation and hygiene behaviors and a reduction in the spread of HIV/AIDS through public awareness campaigns."

The PlayPumps innovative but simple technology also "spurs economic progress through the development of manufacturing, distribution, parts supply and maintenance services associated with the pump technology," North told the House panel. (See related article.)

For more information on the United States’ policy in the region, see U.S. Aid to Africa.

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

On course toward clean water

Worldwide event slakes man's thirst to lend others hand
By ROBERTA MACINNIS
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

A big 6 a.m. thunderstorm the last Saturday in March washed out a lot of people's regular long runs. It was still raining steadily later that morning when a lone runner passed in front of RMS Auto Care on Westheimer at Woodway as he made his way east along the sidewalk toward downtown.

You wouldn't have given the guy a second glance unless you were looking for him. But he was on a mission. As one runner in a 36-hour, 240-mile relay around the Houston area, he was participating in a dress rehearsal of sorts for the 2007 Blue Planet Run, a round-the-world relay to raise awareness about the global need for safe drinking water.


California roots
The event, set for June 1-Sept. 4, was created by Jin Zidell, a California industrialist and philanthropist. In 2002, he established the Blue Planet Run Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted not only to raising awareness about the problem but also funding clean-water projects in developing countries.
About 1.1 billion people — one-sixth of the world's population — don't have daily access to clean water, and more than 2 million people, mostly children, die annually from water-borne diseases, according to the foundation's Web site.

"How are you going to reach literally tens of millions of people at one time? A run provides a platform to raise awareness," Zidell said.

Zidell, 69, remembers the moment inspiration hit him: 11 a.m. Dec. 17, 2001. He was walking around a lake when he saw a woman running.

"She had the power of a panther and the grace of a gazelle, and she wasn't sitting around thinking of something to do. Just then, I saw the world run," he said.

"Running is the first way we communicated across distances. It's a basic mode of human locomotion. A relay is the reaching out, the passing off, the lifting up, the reaching down."

Zidell got to work enlisting support. Dow Chemical Co. signed on as the primary sponsor. Zidell hired the Atlanta-based firm that stages the Olympic torch relays to handle logistics, which have taken years to organize.

The Houston relay was one of two test runs to make sure the plans would work.

Sixteen Dow employees started at the company's Freeport facility and ran around the clock and the city before ending at a Dow plant in Clear Lake.

"Living here in the United States, I take it for granted that I have access to safe, clean drinking water. I didn't realize how extensive the problem was," said Tom Young, a Dow Chemical employee who lives in Lake Jackson and participated in the Houston relay.

Young said he briefly considered applying for the global run, but with two small children, he decided against it.

The 20-person Blue Planet Run team includes 12 men and eight women, ages 23 to 60, representing 13 countries. They were selected from hundreds of applications. The criteria were the ability to run a steady nine-minutes-per-mile pace and to spend more than three months away from home. A commitment to the cause and effective communication skills also were considered.

"They're really messengers. We wanted them to represent 'us,' the global 'we,' " Zidell said.

Divided into teams
The runners will be divided into five teams, with each runner averaging 10 miles a day. They will blog about their experiences on the run's Web site — www.blueplanetrun.org — and will be accompanied by a photographer and video crew.
Aside from three days in July, Zidell will travel the entire way with the group, which will pass through such major cities as Boston, London, Moscow, Beijing and Tokyo.

"Running is just one part," Zidell said. "You meet 49 people (the size of the team and crew). You live with them 100 days, in a different bed every night, with every meal in different place. It's a real reality show," Zidell said.

Zidell envisions the Blue Planet Run as a biennial relay, the "third global athletic event" alongside the Olympics and the World Cup.

It's part of his plan to provide safe drinking water to 200 million people for the rest of their lives by 2027; the foundation has bankrolled 130 projects so far.

The problem is big, he pointed out, but one that can be solved cheaply with simple technologies such as rainwater harvesting. A $30 donation, for example, will pay for drinking water for one person for life.

"If we can't win this one, I don't know what we can win," Zidell said.

roberta.macinnis@chron.com

Who pays for clean water?

Ruling allows cities to seek reimbursement for water programs required by state.

Los Angeles County and its cities now may be able to recoup some of the money it has spent on programs to keep trash from flowing into the L.A. River.
The state Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month that municipalities have the constitutional right to seek reimbursement for programs required by the State Water Resources Control Board or by regional water quality control boards.

The ruling is a victory for city officials, who have called the mandates from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board too costly and said they could cut into police services and other programs.

"It will enable us to get funding to do something," said Signal Hill City Councilman Larry Forester. "Where's the money going to come from? Do I take $150,000 for each thing I have to do and take a police officer off the street?"

The state water board and dozens of Southland cities that form the Coalition for Practical Regulation have been battling since the beginning of the century, when the water board adopted a plan to gradually eliminate trash flow into the Los Angeles River. The board required cities to reduce trash by 10 percent annually for 10 years.

Under the Constitution, the state cannot pass its programs and services to municipalities as unfunded mandates. To enforce the law, the legislature established the commission to process a city or county's claim that the state has created an unfunded mandate.
Before the ruling, the commission could not hear the county and cities' two reimbursement claims because water boards were exempt.One claim was to inspect certain industrial, commercial and construction sites, and another was to install trash bins at some transit stops.

The court determined that the water boards were no longer exempt.

"It's a very narrow procedural issue that basically says they're entitled to a hearing," explained Michael Lauffer, chief counsel for the state water board.

"It opens the gate for the county and cities to get their foot in the door to try to pursue these claims. It doesn't mean the claims have any validity," he said.

"This is what we've been fighting for all along," said Bellflower spokesman Jeff Hobbs. "We're all for clean water programs, but who's going to pay for it? ... If we could get state funding to pay for these programs, the cities would take the lead."

The ruling may make state officials reconsider the rules they impose on cities, said Richard Montevideo, attorney for the coalition.

"Hopefully, the state will give a second thought to what they're requiring and only impose provisions that are reasonable and practical and cost-effective, especially if they're paying for some or all these programs," he said.

Karen Robes can be reached at karen.robes@presstelegram com or (562) 499-1303

TU Wants Strict Penalty for Water Polluters

Philippines:
Team Unity senatorial candidates will support the passage of new legislation imposing stricter penalties on polluters of water sources.

Senatorial candidates Edgardo Angara, Michael Defensor, Cesar Montano, Tessie Aquino-Oreta, Luis “Chavit” Singson, and Vicente “Tito” Sotto III said there is a need to pass laws that would deter the pollution of the diminishing water sources in the Philippines.


Oreta said the water sanitation problem should be addressed on a larger scale by drafting a plan that would streamline the tasks needed to protect the country’s water sources.

“A comprehensive water use plan must be proposed to help in the conservation and efficient use of water for the whole country in line with worldwide trends. This plan must be implemented by a stronger water management office armed with prohibitive fines and other sanctions for violators,” she said.

Singson said there is a need to conduct an inventory first of the natural water resources in the country.

“Sources must be protected including the means by which they are processed, stored and transmitted to the consumers. The regulatory arm of the government must be strengthened to ensure quality, quantity and safety. Our clean water sources are vulnerable to terror threats that can have unimaginable effects on our people,” he said.

Sotto said the inventory could be done through hydrogeological mapping where the usage plan of the natural water resources would be identified and implemented.

“This water-usage scheme will only be effective if backed up by state sanctions like prohibitive fines, cancellation of permits to operate or business licenses for erring businesses, and due imprisonment,” he said.

Defensor, a former environment secretary, said he sees the need to improve the Clean Water Act to also curb the use of ground water in the country.

“Amendments will have to be introduced to the Clean Water Act to impose stricter penalties for polluters of water resources as well as to unauthorized extraction of ground water,” he said.

Angara pointed out that lack of access to potable water has large economic cost, affecting health, agricultural production, food security, and impact on the quality of life.

“We need to pass on laws that will intensify the task of regulating water use and keeping polluters away down to the provincial, city, town and barangay level,” he said.

Montano, who featured the scenic Loboc River in Bohol in his award-winning “Panaghoy sa Suba” movie, said it is also important to actually conduct arrests, prosecute and jail those who pollute water bodies.

“There are not enough policemen roaming around looking for possible culprits. What should perhaps be done is for the municipal, city, and provincial government units to deputize barangay officials to arrest and bright to court anyone who deliberately throw waste and toxic materials into empty spaces, rivers, creeks and streams,” he said###

Water betters lives in Tanzania

May 4, 2007
By United Nations Africa Renewal

Lack of clean and fresh water is a huge problem in many African communities today, resulting in poor health and bad living conditions for hundreds of thousands of people. Does it have to be so difficult? In this article, Africa Renewal examines a project in Tanzania which could show how to bring safe drinkable water to everyone in Africa.
Access to clean water critical to NEPAD development goals
By Itai Madamombe, United Nations Africa Renewal

No one in Lusala needs to walk more than 400 metres in search of water anymore. Fresh water gushes from taps at 11 drawing-points right within the Tanzanian community. For years, shortages sent women and children, the main collectors, several kilometres away each day. The drudgery was worsened by the hard-rock terrain they had to climb carrying heavy pots back to their hilltop village, located about 700 kilometres southwest of Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian capital.

“Life is much better now that I have clean water near my house,” Elizabeth Mtweve, a villager and mother of four, told Africa Renewal. “I don’t walk all day in the heat to find water. In three to five minutes you fill your bucket by turning

a tap. The water project has saved every woman in Lusala a lot of hardship and time.”

“My children, and even myself, used to fall sick because of dirty water,” she adds. “Now we don’t run to the hospital complaining of diarrhoea anymore. With clean water, we enjoy good health.”

Lusala’s estimated 4,000 inhabitants depend on farming for a livelihood, and their farm income partially funded the water scheme. People grow coffee and bananas to sell. Maize and beans are also popular, as both subsistence and cash crops. Villagers raise chickens, goats, small ruminants and some cattle. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) — which also funded the water project in Lusala — said lack of water made it hard for villagers to take care of their animals. Contaminated water also caused most of the village’s health problems, further deepening poverty in the community.

Not difficult or expensive

Across Africa, cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other diseases kill thousands each year. African leaders, through their development blueprint, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), have identified water scarcity as one of the factors undermining the continent’s development. NEPAD provides an overarching framework for efforts to ensure that households, schools, farms, hospitals, industries and other important operations have enough water to meet their needs. African countries have agreed to bring safe, clean water to within no more than 15 minutes walking distance for their citizens.

The Tanzanian government, with support from UNDP, responded to the water problems that plagued Lusala village. UNDP reports that the scheme uses gravity to tap water from a higher point, so that it naturally flows down through two intake pipes into a 75-cubic-metre reservoir. From there, it is distributed via ground pipes to 11 points where people simply turn on taps to fill their containers.

“Such water schemes are not difficult or too expensive to set up,” Nehemiah Murusuri, the UNDP country coordinator in Tanzania, told Africa Renewal. “You use the natural pull of gravity, so no complicated machines, no pumping is necessary. The maintenance is also very cheap and easy. Apart from the rare bursting of a pipe or replacing a loose tap, there is nothing much needed once you set it up.”

Bringing fresh water to Lusala, though not cheap, was not prohibitively expensive. The project, Mr. Murusuri noted, cost the equivalent of US$40,000 — a figure that would have likely quadrupled had private contractors implemented it. Instead, community members, with technical guidance from government water surveyors and engineers, built the reservoir, installed pipes and provided all the necessary labour.

Every family in Lusala was allocated a portion of a 9.4 kilometre trench that needed to be dug in order for the pipes to be installed, explains Dominicus Mganwa, chairperson of the Lusala Development Association, which was formed by villagers to organize their participation in the scheme. The association is today responsible for collecting water fees from users. The money is used to repair equipment when needed.

Coming together

“Working together, problems came up here and there,” Mr. Mganwa notes. This was particularly the case when “trying to decide what we wanted and who was responsible for what. But in the end we learned to resolve our differences. This has benefited the whole community.”

The availability of clean water, he continues, has changed the village in unexpected ways. “Since water is nearby, people have started small brick projects, so now you see good quality houses, all over Lusala, replacing mud and pole huts. This we did not expect, but we are very pleased.”

Two years after the completion of the water project, Mr. Murusuri of UNDP says, the benefits have indeed been multifaceted and have helped make progress towards the goals set by African leaders in other areas. “We are not only putting a water project in place, but also contributing to NEPAD and the Millennium Development Goals to improve water, governance and health and to reduce poverty. People learned to reach agreements through democratic means. Hospital records show a significant drop in the number of people reporting waterborne diseases. Women have more time to focus on income-generating activities.”

Such water projects can be replicated easily in other villages, notes Bedoumra Kordje, director of the Africa Water Facilities at the African Development Bank. There are many successful initiatives to supply safe water for domestic and industrial needs, he told Africa Renewal. But efforts fall short of what is needed to promote lasting socioeconomic development.

“There is no question that the availability of fresh water is one of the most critical factors in development,” says Mr. Kordje. “Yet Africa enjoys only about 3 per cent of its annual renewable water supply, compared to over 80 per cent in the United States.” African countries, he adds, need to improve storage and distribution to help the estimated 300 million people who do not yet have access to clean water.

“We must ensure water is available,” says Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete. “You can do anything you want to improve the infrastructure, but if there is no water, then it amounts to zero work.” The government aims to bring clean safe water to within 400 metres of every Tanzanian household by 2015. For Lusala village, thankfully, that is no longer another goal waiting to happen.

"United Nations Africa Renewal, www.un.org/AR”

Liberals unveil clean water plan

The Liberal Party is offering Islanders a clean drink of water with the announcement of nitrate control measures and a major reduction in the charge to have water tested at provincial laboratories.

Liberal Leader Robert Ghiz joined candidates Wes Sheridan, Janice Sherry and George Webster in Kinkora Thursday morning for the party's second major announcement of the 2007 provincial election campaign. With a background chosen to include fields, a tractor and several ponds, Ghiz announced what he said would be a multi-pronged effort to protect water and to deal with the issue of nitrates from agriculture and other sources infiltrating ground water.

"Water quality is Prince Edward Island's most important environmental issue. It is also a matter of public health," he said.

"There are parts of our province where a large portion of our wells exceed recommended nitrate limits for drinking water. The Liberal Party believes that we need immediate action to address this problem."

Ghiz and Webster said it took years or decades for nitrates to build in the water supply and will take a long time to lower them, but the Grits said they will look at measures to reduce farm use of nitrates. Among the options are improved buffer zones, province-wide three years crop rotations and a switch to potato varieties that use less fertilizer than the ones now in wide use.

In the meantime, the party is planning to make it easier for people who rely on well water to make sure it's up to standards.

Ghiz said they will implement a Clean Water Assistance Program that will give financial help for water testing and treatment.

"Under this program we will immediately reduce the cost of water tests for well owners by 50 per cent. Follow-up tests every two years will be free to residents," he said.

Islamabad being supplied water in accordance with WHO standards: NA told

ISLAMABAD, May 4 (APP): Minister of State for Interior, Zafar Iqbal Warraich on Friday informed the National Assembly that the Federal Capital was being supplied clean drinking water in accordance with standard set by the World Health Organization (WHO) from Khanpur and Simly dams.
Responding to a query during "Question Hour", he said for this purpose, filtration plants have been installed on both the dams.

The Minister said that chlorine-injected water is also being supplied from 182 tubewells to the residents.

To a question, he informed that federal lodges are also being provided clean water.


Responding to another question, the Minister said that one plot measuring 6.63 acres of land was allotted to SOS children village of Pakistan, an NGO, for establishment of a school for under privileged children in Sector H-11 at rate of Rs.218 per square yard last year.


The allotment of was made with the approval of the Prime Minister, he added.


He further informed the National Assembly that one plot measuring three acres was allotted to ZTE (Pvt) Limited at rate of Rs.1425 per square yard in National Park Area to set up a software development centre.


He said that 32 plots were allotted for establishment of schools by private organizations and NGOs in an open and transparent manner in the federal capital as per policy approved by the government.


Meanwhile, about installation of filtration plants at union council level across the country, Minister for Kashmir Affairs said that 38,000 filtration water plants will be installed aimed at providing clean drinking water to the people.

In the first phase, about 445 filtration plants have been established
at Tehsil level.

He said now 20 new companies have been pre-qualified for speedy
installation of filtration plants.


The Minister said an estimated Rs.10 billion will be spend for completion of these projects.

Water market to open further in China

Updated: 2007-04-20 15:36

China will further open its water market to foreign investment to help address the country's issues of increasingly scare water supply and waste water treatment, according to officials attending the China Water Congress 2007 in Bejijing today.
"China's demand for water will continue to increase in the future as the country continues its process of rapid industrialization and urbanization. And so there are promising business prospects in the water industry, both in water supply and water waste treatment," said Qin Hong, deputy director of the Policy Research Centre under the Ministry of Construction , at the two-day congress, which opened yesterday.

During the 11th Five-Year Program period (2006-2010), total investment in China's water industry will top 600 billion yuan (US$77.72 billion), 200 billion yuan of which will go towards water supply systems construction, and 400 billion yuan will be injected into new sewage treatment facilities, Qin made the announcement to the congress, which attracted about 300 water business leaders from countries including France, Germany, Australia and Japan.

In the meantime, China will build 1,000 new sewage treatment plants. By the year 2010, the rate of water supply systems will reach 90 percent in all 661 of its cities. Qin adds the rate of waste water treatment and recycling will increase to 60 per cent.

Apart from these development plans, China will also start a number of sea water and middle-water treatment projects and the reconstruction of some out-of-date water facilities.

The development of China's water industry will provide tremendous business opportunities to overseas water investors. And to achieve its goals, China needs the support of overseas funds, stressed Chinese officials at the meeting.

"Foreign investment will be encouraged especially in waste water treatment projects," Qin explained. The congress is a platform to help foreign water companies to learn the recent developments of China's water industry and the business opportunities in the future.

Source: Ccinadaily.com.cn

As the scarcity of water persists without any ray of hope from anywhere, people now search for water in unusual places

Daybreak everyday, it is the same story. Several people, especially women, troop out of their houses at the first Muslim call to prayers with buckets, big basins, kegs and the likes. Sometimes, they hold lanterns or torches when there is power failure (which happens often) and the morning is still dark.

Vigilante men don’t bother these ones because they know what they are searching for in the early hours of the day when they should be sleeping or doing some other household chores. Moreover, their wives could probably be among those in the early morning search for water. An hour later, some of these people would be seen returning to their homes with big basins of water, sometimes muddy, on their heads while pulling buckets or kegs of water along. More pathetic are the cases of women who, in addition to the heavy water containers, have babies strapped on their backs, and little kids following them with small containers on their heads. Ironically, they always come back smiling and chatting, and calling on neighbours, who are yet to go on water search, to rejoice with them.

In Oja Oba area of Ibadan, Oyo State recently, a public tap (as is custom) that had not run for weeks suddenly had water flowing from it. The residents alerted one another and within minutes, the place was jam-packed with people, buckets and the likes. However, the water flow was rather slow; it could take an hour for a bucket to fill up. After waiting endlessly for the current to increase to no avail, the people discovered the cause of the slow flow – a pipe had burst and water that was supposed to be flowing to the tap was gushing out of the broken pipe. Though the pipe had been covered with refuse and mud, the people simply saw it as a miracle; they shifted the long queue to the broken pipe, scooping water from the dirt while some that couldn’t stand the putrid smell coming from refuse covered their noses.

The situation in other states is not any better. In fact, water crisis is a national problem in Nigeria, as the national water coverage is about 40 per cent for major cities like Lagos, Ibadan and Abuja, with a miserable five per cent in few local government areas. The most populous city in Africa, Lagos, has sufficient water resources that could meet the needs of its people, but actual water supply is very poor in most parts of the state.

But unlike Ibadan, most Lagos residents had stopped waiting for Water Corporation to bring succour to them. They have now found a solution in boreholes. Many drill boreholes for private use and, sometimes, commercial purposes. While the borehole alternative is easier in places like Lagos with high water level; the rocky terrain of Ibadan make it difficult for people to dig wells that will sustain them all year round.

Water has always been a big problem in Ibadan. During the dry season, the situation is unbearable. Many wells get dry and water stops flowing even in the few areas that normally enjoy treated water during rainy season and many people have to rely on the few wells and boreholes around them. Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, Alhaji Akorede, a resident of Isale Ijebu area of Ibadan, said everyone in the vicinity depends on the public tap, but unfortunately, the tap has not been functioning well since the dry season began. “Sometimes, the tap doesn’t run for two months and when it does, the flow is usually slow,” he said. “People have to walk long distance in search of water. Wells around here are already dried up; likewise the borehole that was constructed by UNICEF a couple of years ago has stopped functioning for over a year. We will be lucky if water tankers come around.

“Buying water is not easy for us as well. For instance, a basin of water sells for N40. The people around are poor; the average family can only afford two basins of water and you know the implication of that.” On the potability of water that flows from the tap, Mr Demola, another resident who spoke with Nigerian Tribune said: “The water is usually dirty; I guess is it because some pipes are broken and dirt filters into them. By the time the water comes out of the pipes, it would be brownish and smelly. Pointing at burst pipe, he said: “It has been broken for a long time. Despite the fact that the place is muddy and dirty, people would scoop from water from it. We can’t blame them because they don’t know when next they would come across water.

Asked how come the pipes were broken, he said: “We really don’t know, and if the pipes were broken by residents, it couldn’t have been an intentional act. Come to think of it, these pipes are really old, nobody cares about them, I don’t think officials of Water Corporation check on them. The best we can do is to secure the broken points with nylon or rubber so that the water will not get contaminated. Our fear is that if something is not done, there could be an outbreak of cholera.”

Without any doubt, the scarcity of water has disrupted the day-to-day activities of the residents. A clergy, Pastor Moses Daramola, narrated his ordeal as a pastor in a CAC church at Inalende, an area where water is next to gold. “During dry season like this, the turnout of my congregation is always poor,” he said. “ “Many of them complain that they couldn’t make church services because they had no water to bath. Sometimes after the service, I would see them still queuing up for water; some of them would be full of apologies saying, ‘Pastor, we are sorry. We’ve been here since 3 am…’ I know they are not lying because it is really difficult getting water in this part of the city.”

Business has not been as usual with businessmen that cannot do without water. Mr. Taiwo Akinola, a printer at Mokola hills said the non-availability of water has affected their businesses. “Printing needs water, and unfortunately, most printers are located in Mokola where water is very scarce,” he says. “We get water from wells, most of which are being locked up because of the drought. “Alternatively, we buy water from tankers and when they don’t come, we just have to go to areas like Eleyele, where we will be sure that water would flow.”

Areas where residents have access to water include Eleyele, Agodi, Bodija, Idi Isin, Montana and so on. These areas, however, rely on private boreholes. Areas like Agbowo, Inalende, Orita Aperin, Oke Agala and Aremo are untouched where treated water is concerned, while only some parts of Oja Agbo, Oje, Alajare, Idi Arere, Oke Ado have assess to treated water. Outskirts of the state are out of the question where water is concerned. Reacting to this situation, Mrs. Busola Adetunji, the Public Relation Officer of the Oyo State Water Corporation, said the government is aware of the water situation. “The government is not neglecting anyone,” she says. “Presently, we are working on extension areas and we would ensure that everyone gets water.”

In the meantime, the scarcity is really biting hard. It is hoped that a prompt and lasting solution will be sought before there is outbreak of cholera and other water related diseases.

Water Is the Next Oil

By Bill Mann
April 17, 2007

Before you start reading this, I'd like you to do something. Go to the nearest water faucet and turn it on, just for a second. See what comes out? See what color it is, or rather, what color it isn't? How often have you thought about the amazing infrastructure that delivers clean (cold and hot!) water to multiple access points in your home and office?

In the United States and the rest of the developed world, access to low-cost, clean sources of water is so universal that we often need to be reminded of the benefits of preserving it. The city government of San Francisco helpfully notes that you can save hundreds of gallons of water per year by simply turning off the tap while brushing your teeth.

Just think how absurd that must sound to the more than 1 billion people on Earth who lack secure access to clean water, or even to the hundreds of millions more who do have access to clean water that has to be brought in from a well. Water usage takes on a totally different dimension when you have to haul it around by hand. Would you just toss hundreds of gallons of extra water on the floor while brushing your teeth?

The new oil
Water, not petroleum, is the world's most precious resource. Though we're not there yet, companies like Sasol (NYSE: SSL), Rentech (AMEX: RTK), Syntroleum (Nasdaq: SYNM), and others are working diligently to create petroleum-replacement fuels in quantities and at costs that can meaningfully displace our dependence on oil. But with water, there is no replacement.

The Motley Fool Global Gains team believes strongly in the power of the human spirit, and we believe it's a poverty for us all that one person should want for water. That's why we're launching a campaign to raise money for a dynamic organization called PlayPumps International.

What is PlayPumps?
PlayPumps is based in South Africa, and like so many great things, it got its start from the mind of an entrepreneur. Trevor Field, an advertising executive, saw an opportunity when he came across a machine an engineer had developed that used a child's merry-go-round to pump water. Mr. Field saw a way to turn such a contraption into a more complex watering system. He also realized that the mechanism could solve one of the real problems that has bedeviled governments and other organizations for years: developing a water pump that circumvented the various unreliable sources of power to operate it.

But Mr. Field also noted that in the poorest areas in South Africa, children had precious few alternatives to play. So why not combine the two into a water-pumping system driven by playing children? He deployed the first two pumps in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province in 1994, and they're still working today. The cost to provide water to a person using the PlayPumps system breaks down to about $0.60 per year.

Global Gains is an international investing service blessed with members from around the world. Many of us have seen firsthand the brutal, wrenching impact that abject poverty has on children and families. Now, we've found a way to help give back some of what we get from the global community to those most in need of our help.

We wanted to find a charity with an international scope -- one small enough for our support to make a visible difference, yet established and broad-minded enough that we could be certain of its reputation, effectiveness, and appeal. We also wanted to be able to track our progress. But most of all, we wanted to find a group that truly had, in every way, the interests of its "clients" in mind. In sum, we sought out a Foolish charity, and after considering scores of extremely worthy groups (and we are considering expanding/renewing our efforts over time), PlayPumps leapt off the page to us. Children playing! Fresh, clean water where there was none!

Even better, PlayPumps is extremely efficient in utilizing almost every penny of its raised funds to deploy pumps. These aren't empire builders, yet their efforts have been noticed by such corporate partners as Sasol, Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO), BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP), JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM), and Unilever (NYSE: UL), who join in supporting PlayPumps.

100 pumps in 100 days
Here's why I urge you to join me in giving today: PlayPumps is in the midst of a "100 Pumps in 100 Days" campaign, which runs through the end of June, seeking to raise $1.4 million (it costs $14,000 to deploy each pump). Running for the same length of time, we at Global Gains will hold drawings to give away a year's subscription to Global Gains. You're automatically entered if you contribute to PlayPumps, and the sooner you do, the more chances you have of winning.

So that's about it: a billion people without water, a motley assortment of people organized to do something about it, and an ingenious device that gives children a place to play. To me, it doesn't get much better than that.

Bill Mann is advisor of Motley Fool Global Gains. Bill owns none of the companies mentioned in this article, although he has already made a donation to PlayPumps' 100 Pumps in 100 Days campaign. Sasol is a Global Gains recommendation. JPMorgan and Unilever are Income Investor picks, while Coca-Cola is an Inside Value pick. The Fool has a disclosure policy.

THE THIRSTY: Relief groups are beginning to focus on places desperate for accessible and safe-to-drink water

A fledgling coalition of religious groups is trying to show Americans that for many people getting clean drinking water isn’t as easy as turning on the kitchen tap.

More than 1 billion people in developing countries lack readily available safe drinking water and 2.6 billion are without access to sanitation. Faith communities in the United States are stepping up efforts to push for clean and accessible water.

“There is a growing realization in most of the mainline churches and faith-based groups that the environment is part of God’s creation, and humans have a responsibility to sustain it,” said Dennis Warner, a water specialist at Catholic Relief Services in Baltimore.

“In a sense, there has to be a partnership between the creator and human beings to sustain the environment. ... It’s a moral pact, it’s a moral responsibility.”

Statistics collected by Water Advocates, a Washington advocacy group, are sobering:

• UNICEF says that 4,500 children die each day because of diarrhea (from dirty water) or dehydration (from no water).

The average child in Guatemala gets diarrhea 12 times a year.

• The average woman in Africa walks 6 kilometers each day, and African women spend 40 billion hours each year, collecting water - time not spent working or caring for children.

• Unsanitary water is a leading cause of fatal illnesses in developing countries, contributing to cholera, typhoid, guinea worm, trachoma (blindness) and diarrhea. Thirty percent of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals hinge in some way on access to clean water.

“The global health toll is just huge,” said David Douglas, the president of Water Advocates.

Groups say that the water conservation and sanitation crisis resonates with the religious community.

“Water is significant in the Biblical tradition; it’s significant in our theological traditions,” said Marty Shupack, an associate director for public policy at Church World Service, a New York relief agency affiliated with the National Council of Churches.

Shupack heads the Water Working Group, a loose coalition that was created last year to bring faith-based communities together to attack the water crisis. Along with Water Advocates, the group is pressuring Congress to increase spending on sustainable water and sanitation efforts by $500 million.

Conservationists are increasing the pressure on Capitol Hill, but they must tackle a more basic problem. Americans seem unable to grasp the idea that water is limited.

“The tendency of most Americans (is) not to know what it’s like not to be able to have access to clean drinking water,” Douglas said.

Added Warner, “We tend to view water as almost an inexhaustible resource, but it’s not.”

Catholic Relief Services is currently manning drinking-water projects in 30 countries. In the arid sub-Saharan Africa region, the agency has created diesel- and hand-powered bore holes to retrieve groundwater. Mountainous areas such as Ethiopia and Kenya can harness gravity to pipe water down from the heights into communities. In Latin America, Catholic Relief Services is organizing rainwater-harvesting projects. Rain is gathered from metal and clay rooftops and used as drinking water rather than runoff. Rainwater also can be collected into manmade ponds to serve as a longer-term source of drinking water and protein if fish are added.

Water conservationists at Church World Service emphasize incorporating the community in planning and implementing the water projects. That way, the help will last long after aid workers leave the area. “All human beings are made in the image of God,” Shupack said, “and have the capacity and the right to make decisions that change their lives.”

U students make a difference in Cambodia

By: Jake Hunter
Posted: 4/9/07
While many students go through college focusing on classes, there are many who have more on their minds.

Some such students are those involved in Care for Cambodia, an organization founded by Jack Stringham, a senior in exercise physiology.

Stringham, along with other students from the U, visited Cambodia and offered humanitarian aid during the last Winter Break, and they're not done yet.

The organization started when Stringham went to Cambodia in 2005 and taught English in the capital city, Phnom Penh.

Seeing the condition of some of the poorer areas, Stringham decided to start a non-profit organization. In April of 2006, Care for Cambodia became a reality.

The main purpose of the organization is to help the poorest people in Cambodia become more self-sufficient.

"We aren't just giving out handouts," Stringham said, "we actually have the people in the community help with the project. This connects them more to what is going on and helps us on cost."

Before they left during the break, the group raised over $12,000 to help the country.

"One of the main problems with the country is the condition of the water; the people have to travel miles in the dry season just to get dirty water that is not good for their health. One in five children die before age five due to water-related illness," Stringham said.

This money was used to build wells for water in many of the poorer cities in the country.

"Six wells have already been drilled with 20 more already in the planning stage. The organization's goal is to get 50 done by summer," Stringham said.

The group has large goals for the future, including building more wells and, later, schools and medical centers for the people of Cambodia.

"It creates such a great feeling doing this service. People need to understand that they can really make a difference out there; you can either join a group or create a group that helps save lives, and it will become a very rewarding experience," Stringham said.

To learn more or make a donation, visit www.careforcambodia.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© Copyright 2007 The Daily Utah Chronicle

Muslim Aid able to provide clean water in emergencies

Muslim Aid Sri Lanka (MASL) and GlobalMedic, a Canadian-based team that helps developing countries in emergency medicine and relief issues, have teamed up to respond to water emergencies anywhere in the world.

Muslim Aid’s newly-formed International Disaster Response Unit (IDRU) will be able to ensure steady supplies of clean water to victims of natural disasters and man-made crises within 24 hours.

“We are looking forward to working closely with Muslim Aid in the future. We need the support of local agencies to be able to function effectively,” said Peter Cullingford, GlobalMedic’s Logistics and Supply Manager.

Members of GlobalMedic’s Water Purification Unit have trained field officers from MASL and its local partner agencies in the northwest and northeast of the country in three methods of supplying water free of bacteria and sediment to people who have no immediate sources of hygienic water.

Impure water can instantly be made suitable for drinking by dissolving in Aquatab tablets and mixing in aluminium sulphide, a cheap and readily available chemical. With a portable machine working on a filter system and powered by a vehicle battery or cigarette lighter, four litres of water can be uncontaminated in one minute. A larger unit powered by a portable generator with a pump and hosepipe can clean 100 litres in one minute.

The team also showed MASL field officers how to pump out water from an unsanitary well, scrub the insides and purify the water once it has filled up again.

“Now that our people have been trained, they can respond internationally to any emergency water situation,” said MASL’s Country Director Amjad Mohamed-Saleem.

In Sri Lanka, the personnel will be ready to deal with any influx of refugees displaced by the deteriorating security situation in the north and east, where several thousands are already sheltering in temporary camps.

“The training was very useful for us because we can now go and work in the camps where people are suffering from diseases because they don’t have clean water,” said Mohamed Ishak from MASL’s partner organisation, Centre for Development Rebuilding.

MASL is geared to supply emergency water to 70,000 people per day and will be the second largest provider of clean water in Sri Lanka.

For further information and photos, please contact Minoli de Soysa at 0775352584 or minoli@muslimaidsl.org

(ENDS)

ATTN. EDITORS:

1. Agency background

Muslim Aid is an international humanitarian relief and development charity working to alleviate the suffering among the world’s poorest and most needy communities. Set up in 1985 by leading British Muslim organisations, Muslim Aid supports projects in 50 countries spanning Africa, Asia and Europe. By responding quickly to emergencies, Muslim Aid provides relief to the victims of natural disasters, war and famine. We also deploy long-term development projects on education, skills training, provision of clean water and healthcare to tackle the root causes of poverty.

2. Muslim Aid’s Sri Lanka Office can be contacted:

Regional Communications Manager – Minoli de Soysa
Tel: +94-11- 2819182 / 0775352584
Fax: +94-11- 2821675
email: minoli@muslimaidsl.org, info@muslimaidsl.org

Uganda Peacekeepers Donate Clean Water to IDPs

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
NEWS
April 9, 2007

By: Shabelle News-Dept.

The AU peacekeepers in Somalia today distributed clean water to many war internal displaced families in the outskirt of the Somalia capital Mogadishu - many people fled the city due to the recent fighting in the capital between the Ethiopian forces and the local Somali insurgents.

The AU peacekeepers in Somalia today distributed clean water to many war internal displaced families in the outskirt of the Somalia capital.

Captain Paddy Ankunda, the spokesman for the African Union peace keeping mission in Somalia told reporters that the Ugandan forces today supplied clean water of two tankers to hundreds of displaced Somali families who made houses under trees outskirt of the capital.

"This is part of the humanitarian mission we are doing here, we have distributed thousands of liters of waters to families scattered outside of Mogadishu" said Ankunda.

Some reports say that the Somali families initially got suspicion about the water being supplied by the Ugandan peacekeepers as it was poisoned but later felt satisfactory after the Ugandan soldiers first drunk the water by themselves.

This is the second time that Ugandan aided Somalis with clean water.

Earlier the Ugandan peacekeepers distributed 15 liters of clean water to families that made temporary houses under trees outside of the capital.

Faith Groups Step Up Campaign for Clean Water

A fledgling coalition of religious groups is trying to show Americans that for too many people worldwide, retrieving clean drinking water isn't as easy as turning on the kitchen tap.

With more than 1 billion people in developing countries lacking readily available safe drinking water and 2.6 billion without access to sanitation, the faith community at home is stepping up efforts to push for clean and accessible water."There is a growing realization in most of the mainline churches and faith-based groups that the environment is part of God's creation, and humans have a responsibility to sustain it," said Dennis Warner, a water specialist at Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services (CRS)."In a sense there has to be a partnership between the creator and human beings to sustain the environment. ... It's a moral pact, it's a moral responsibility."Statistics collected by Water Advocates, a Washington-based advocacy group, are sobering:-- UNICEF says 4,500 children die each day because of diarrhea (from dirty water) or dehydration (from no water). The average child in Guatemala suffers from diarrhea 12 times a year.-- The average woman in Africa walks 6 kilometers each day, and African women spend 40 billion hours each year, collecting water -- time not spent working or caring for children.-- Unsanitary water is a leading cause of fatal illnesses in developing countries, contributing to cholera, typhoid, guinea worm, trachoma (blindness) and diarrhea. Thirty percent of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals hinge in some way on access to clean water."The global health toll is just huge," said David Douglas, president of Water Advocates.Groups say the water conservation and sanitation crisis resonates with the religious community."Water is significant in the Biblical tradition; it's significant in our theological traditions," said Marty Shupack, associate director for public policy at Church World Service, a New York-based relief agency affiliated with the National Council of Churches.Shupack chairs the six-month-old Water Working Group, a loose coalition that was created to bring faith-based communities together to attack the water crisis. Along with Water Advocates, the group is pressuring Congress to increase spending on sustainable water and sanitation efforts by $500 million.While conservationists are increasing the pressure on Capitol Hill, they must tackle a more basic problem: Americans' inability to grasp the idea that water is limited."The tendency of most Americans (is) not to know what it's like not to be able to have access to clean drinking water," Douglas said.Added Warner, from CRS, "We tend to view water as almost an inexhaustible resource, but it's not."Catholic Relief Services is currently manning drinking water projects in 30 countries. In the arid sub-Saharan Africa region, CRS has created diesel- and hand-powered bore holes to retrieve groundwater.Mountainous areas like Ethiopia and Kenya can harness gravity to pipe water down from the heights into communities.In Latin America, CRS is organizing rainwater-harvesting projects: Rain is gathered from metal and clay rooftops and used as drinking water rather than runoff. Rainwater also can be collected into man-made ponds to serve as a longer-term source of drinking water and protein if fish are added.Water conservationists at Church World Service emphasize incorporating the community in planning and implementing the water projects. That way, the help will last long after aid workers leave the area."All human beings are made in the image of God," Shupack said, "and have the capacity and the right to make decisions that change their lives."

Two Months Without Clean Water

North Brookfield, Madison County (WSYR-TV) - Imagine not being able to take a shower for two months. Some people in rural Madison County have been without clean water for that long, after the search for natural gas there took a very wrong turn.
Back in February, Ardent Resources, a company out of Pennsylvannia, began drilling for natural gas in the Madison County hamlet of North Brookfield.

But when the rig got stuck, drillers blew compressed air to try to free it, that air blew right through the hamlet's water table.

Two months later, some people are still using bottled water and sleeping at a hotel, while their patience is running thin.

Four generations of the Barnes family have lived in the area.

Megan Barnes lives there because she loves the simple life, but for the past two months, she's been living with dirty water.

About a dozen other families in North Brookfield also have some form of contaminated water, after natural gas drilling went terribly wrong, ruining the community aquifer.

In Megan's case, methane was coming out of her kitchen faucet.

After that, enough was enough and Megan spent thousands on water tanks and brought in pool water.

She can bathe in it, but it's not clean enough to drink and it's only a temporary solution.

Megan wants the drilling company, Ardent, to pay for a new well system.

But despite those words, Ardent's owner Chris Robinson told people at a meeting Thursday night he wants to try filters to clean the dirty water, first, before trying anything else.

He says the filters are already working for the farmer up the road.

The filters need to be replaced every year, and Megan's worry is, after a while, she'll be the one paying for the replacement.

“I plan on living here for the rest of my life even if they replace the costs for 15 years it's still something that we'd have to deal with.”

Ardent's co-owner would not give us an interview but he did tell the people at the meeting he wants them to call him any time, day or night, if they have any problems and he also plans on meeting with each family individually to assess the damage.

Ardent does plan to try drilling in that area again, once the DEC signs off and people's water is back to normal.


Copyright 2007 CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS

Udu Villages Isolated/Without Clean Water After Cyclone Cliff

By fiji village
Apr 6, 2007, 17:00
Villages along the Udu peninsula located at the tip of Vanua Levu remain isolated and hundreds of villagers are in urgent need of clean drinking water in the aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Cliff.Speaking to Village News from Tukavesi in Taveuni this afternoon, the Commissioner Northern Misieli Naivalu confirms that his officials are now trying to access the area by sea.

He also confirms that there are extensive damages in Rabi and the Banaban Primary School was partially blown away by strong winds.Naivalu stresses that hundreds of villagers are in need of clean drinking water after water supply sources were damaged by flood water during the height of the cyclone.Survey teams will continue visiting the affected areas to carry out assessments on the damages and provide emergency relief packs to the affected families this evening and tomorrow.Red Cross teams are also trying to access the affected areas to provide emergency relief supplies. © Copyright 2003 Fijivillage.com

Dirty water complaints force city to flush mains

WSBT-TV Report SOUTH BEND — You expect your drinking water to be clear. Some people in South Bend say their water is anything but clear. They've been complaining for weeks about brown, murky water.They're flushing the water mains for the first time in two years in response to those complaints, but some people say that's still not enough.Marlen Bontrager told WSBT News his family has been dealing with dirty water for weeks. "We need to have our bath water, we need to have our laundry done and it's almost impossible the way it looks now," Bontrager said.The city says by flushing the mains, the problem will be solved. However, there will be some short term discoloration."When we flush these water mains, we will cause discolored water on a temporary basis in the immediate area where we are flushing," said Dave Tungate, of South Bend Water Works.So the city asks that people limit their water use, but the water is safe to consume.

Southwestern Pupils Test Chautauqua Lake Water

3/27/2007 - LAKEWOOD — By S. ALEXANDER GEROULD
Pupils at Southwestern Elementary School are hoping they will have a positive impact on protecting Chautauqua Lake.For the third time this year, the pupils, using samples of water obtained near McRae Park, tested the temperature, acidity and turbidity of the water and compared their findings to their last tests a few months ago.According to Kristen Hoth, kindergarten teacher and member of the SWES science committee, when she collected the samples this morning the air measured 33 degrees, while the water temperature was 38 degrees.‘‘Now this morning think about what the weather was like when you got up this morning,’’ she told the pupils assembled at tables in front of her. ‘‘It was very chilly. There was a big, thick layer of ice. We tested it right around the boat landing.’’The lab participants then used litmus paper to determine the acidity of the water. The results indicated the lake was around a seven, about the acidity of milk and right where it should be according to Traci Fagerstrom, fourth-grade teacher.‘‘If it’s too acidic or to basic the fish are not going to survive,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s a good sign that the lake is healthy.’’Susan Waite, fifth-grade teacher, then instructed the pupils on how to measure the temperature of their water samples and said the lake is usually somewhere between 30 to 40 degrees this time of year.‘‘Remember we did not have typical January temperatures,’’ she said. ‘‘Now we have more seasonal March temperatures. We’ve got to make sure the temperature doesn’t go too high because it affects the fish. In order for us to maintain the fishing population, we’ve got to take care of (the lake).’’Using thermometers, the pupils found the water had become warmer since their last test in winter.While measuring the turbidity of the lake, Ms. Hoth said things in the water can impact the amount of light reaching plant and animal life.‘‘If something is very turbid, it’s cloudy,’’ she said. ‘‘If something is not turbid, it’s not cloudy. If there are suspended things in the water, it’s going to make the oxygen not get to the fish.’’After a recent presentation from Tina Nelson, a member of the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy, where Ms. Nelson explained the harmful affects pollution can have on local waterways and urged her audience to write letters to school and government officials about the issue, teachers and pupils at the elementary school decided to voice their opinions.According to Tammy Piazza, SWES science committee chair, letters were sent to Daniel George, district superintendent, and Board of Education members, Celoron, Busti, Jamestown and Lakewood officials and Greg Edwards, Chautauqua County executive, and other county officials. Included with each letter was an invitation to attend the culminating assembly of the school’s yearlong program, H2O FOR LIFE, in May and the opportunity to speak on the water issue.Ms. Piazza said the pupils were urging George and school board members to think of ways to stop pollution from reaching waterways, such as placing vegetation to help absorb pollution, when parking lots are resurfaced as part of the district’s building project. ‘‘Planting these trees and these shrubs is a big deal,’’ she said. ‘‘The children were taking a pro-active approach.’’

Hastings water wins taste test

The 45-year-old water that gushes from an underground aquifer and straight into the pipes of the Hastings urban supply has been judged the best tap water on offer to a large population in New Zealand.
The Great New Zealand Water Tasting Competition held each year at the Putaruru Water Festival gave first place in the municipal-supply category to water from the small South Waikato village of Arapuni.
A wine bottle filled with Hastings tap water and labelled Chateau Aquifer 2007 came second.
The city's water manager, Dylan Stuijt, said though Hastings was beaten by Arapuni, its water supply was much bigger, and the quality was unusual in a big population centre.
"It shows that of all the major centres in New Zealand, Hastings comes out on top in the water taste stakes," he said.
Hastings district's households, industries, horticulture and viticulture are fed by water pumped from 50 to 90 metres below ground, from the fourth confining layer of the Heretaunga Plains aquifer.
"Our water has been naturally filtered for about 45 years, and is well protected from any potentially harmful activities on the surface, contributing to making it one of the best-tasting in the country," Mr Stuijt said.
The water needs no cleaning or treatment before it is put into the supply pipelines.
There are 13 aquifers beneath the plains, sustained by 188 million cubic metres of water entering the recharge area west of Hastings each year.
The water travels about eight metres a day on its long journey through the gravels under the plains, where about 36 per cent is drawn off.
The rest emerges in springs out in the salty waters of Hawke Bay about 50 years after entering the aquifer.

NYS awards $11M to improve water quality

ALBANY, NY — The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) recently announced nearly $11 million in grants for 58 water quality improvement projects that are designed to help reduce polluted runoff, improve water quality and restore habitat in state waters, according to a DEC press release.Nearly $5 million will be awarded to 37 municipalities and Soil and Water Conservation Districts across the state to assist with projects to reduce pollution from stormwater runoff, improve the storage and handling of road salt and reduce pollution from malfunctioning septic systems — all of which are major sources of water pollution in New York state, according to the release.More than $2.6 million will be awarded for 14 projects designed to help municipalities in 13 counties comply with the federal Clean Water Act's Phase II stormwater controls so that water quality is restored and protected, according to the press release.Six municipalities along the upper Hudson River will receive grant monies to help fund seasonal disinfection at their wastewater treatment facilities and abate combined sewer overflows, according to the press release.

Most farmers adopting best clean water practice

Tuesday 27 March 2007
Copeland - Most farmers adopting best clean water practice
United Future environment spokesperson Gordon Copeland is pleased that the majority of dairy farmers have adopted Fonterra's effluent disposal requirements, although he concedes that the few remaining culprits can ruin it for everyone else.
The target is 100 percent compliance; however there are still 10 percent of dairy farmers who ignore the requirements for effluent disposal as adopted by Fonterra.
"These farmers need to realise that they are responsible for making sure dairying is environmentally viable in New Zealand into the future," said Mr Copeland.
"Clean water is a basic requirement for any healthy, environmentally friendly country, which is why United Future is committed to addressing water quality and agrarian runoff through our Confidence and Supply Agreement with the Government.
"It is encouraging to hear that the Taranaki Regional Council is requiring farmers to plant riparian strips along waterways. This is a very responsible initiative that will hopefully spread throughout other regional councils across the country.
"The planting of riparian strips, fencing streams off from stock, nutrient budgeting and nitrogen inhibitors are all low-cost, no-regrets solutions to mitigating nitrogen leakage into our rivers and streams.
"There is a lot of research and new technology available for farmers to not only mitigate their nitrogen runoff but also to improve the economic efficiency of their operation.
"Our aim is to work with the farming community to achieve a lasting improvement in New Zealand's rural water quality through the implementation of better farming practices and greater efficiency," said Mr Copeland.

Back To Environmental Basics: Reinvesting In Clean Water

Back To Environmental Basics: Reinvesting In Clean Water: "Back To Environmental Basics: Reinvesting In Clean Water
March 25, 2007
By CURTIS P. JOHNSON, and FAITH GAVIN KUHN
Environmentalists and members of the construction industry are often at odds. In the case of clean water, however, the industry and environmentalists are like-minded.

A coalition of statewide and regional organizations, including environmental organizations, construction companies, business organizations, labor groups and municipalities, supports a re-investment in environmental basics: sewage-free rivers and harbors and a healthy, restored Long Island Sound...."

Vietnam feels heat over clean water shortage

Vietnam feels heat over clean water shortage: "Experts have urged relevant agencies in Vietnam to take drastic measures to conserve water supplies in response to warnings that the country may face a severe shortage of clean water by 2010.

Management agencies should draw up regulations to ensure that water supplies are appropriately allocated and used as economically as possible, they said.

According to hydrographic and water resource experts, many rivers... "

Earthwatch Puts Clean Water On The Map In Africa

Earthwatch Puts Clean Water On The Map In Africa: "Scientists and volunteers from Earthwatch, the environmental charity, have developed a comprehensive new Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database that will help local communities in the Samburu region of Kenya to manage their water supply and avert public health crises.

Compiled over three years..."

Focus on preservation of groundwater resources

Focus on preservation of groundwater resources
: "T'PURAM: Preservation of groundwater resources and scientific evaluation of quality of drinking water will be the thrust areas during the campaign of the State Government to deal with water scarcity, announced Minister for Water Resources N K Premachandran.

He was inaugurating the year-long programmes of the government in connection with World Water Day here on Thursday.

QUALITY TEST: As part of evaluating the quality of drinking water, the government will test the quality of 50 water resources in each wards under the 999 grama panchayats "

World Bank to help finance clean up of China's Pearl River

World Bank to help finance clean up of China's Pearl River:The World Bank approved on Thursday a loan of 96 million U.S. dollars to help finance the clean up of the heavily polluted Pearl River in South China's Guangdong Province.
The financing deal, which involves a total investment of 188 million U.S. dollars, will initiate the second phase of a massive clean up of the Pearl River Delta.
The loan will help expand waste water treatment facilities in the cities of Foshan and Jiangmen which generate about 15 percent of the waste water...

'Water quality affects health'

'Water quality affects health': Every year Jakarta is forced to deal with water shortages, floods and the outbreak of water-borne diseases. In conjunction with World Water Day on March 22, The Jakarta Post asked residents about their experiences with poor water quality and supply.
Novri Irza, 32, works for a national....

Leading News Resource of Pakistan - Govt spending billions of rupees to provide clean water

Govt spending billions of rupees to provide clean water:LAHORE: Environment Minister Dr Anjum Amjad said on Thursday, that the provincial government was spending billions of rupees to supply safe drinking water. Dilapidated water pipes in the province were being replaced, she said. Addressing various seminars during World Water Day on Thursday, the minister said that the government was also re-lining the canals. Water treatment plants were also being installed to treat industrial wastewater...........

Ghana - ‘Clean Water’ song hits Ghana’s airwaves on World Water Day

UNICEF - At a glance: Ghana - ‘Clean Water’ song hits Ghana’s airwaves on World Water Day:ACCURA, Ghana, 22 March 2007 – In a fitting contribution to World Water Day – designed to draw attention to the water crisis affecting children and families across the globe – two of Ghana’s most popular musicians have released ‘Clean Water’, a brand new track that urges communities to consume safe water....

TV stars support Africa water project

TV stars support Africa water project:He is used to taking on the daleks but now Dr Who actor David Tennant is tackling a real killer - contaminated water.

The heartthrob has teamed up with fellow actors including Hugo Speer, Ian Kelsey and Claire Goose to film a new television advert to promote ethical water One - the brainchild...

Billion suffer without clean water

Highest environmental investment to be made for clean water

Highest environmental investment to be made for clean water: Turkey will make the highest environmental investment for clean water within the framework of the EU harmonization. Out of the environmental investments worth Euro 70 billion envisaged to be completed by 2025, Euro 37.6 billion consists of waste water projects...

Starbucks may test water biz in India.

Starbucks may test water biz in India: NEW DELHI: When US coffee chain giant Starbucks forays in India later this year, it might offer more than just a cuppa -- an annual ritual of free coffee, a new mineral water brand and grants for clean water projects could be part of the package.
The world's largest coffee chain, which is planning to open its first Indian store this year and has zeroed in on New Delhi and Mumbai for the launch, has announced a one million dollar grant toward a clean water project to commemorate World Water Day....