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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Sticking Iraq’s utilities back together |
| 2004-03-31 |
| Forget the big issues, it is contaminated water, power-outs and open sewers which make ordinary Iraqis’ lives a misery. BBC News Online’s Lisa Mitchell looks at the efforts being made to plaster over the cracks in the country’s crumbling infrastructure. In parts of Basra there are lakes of fresh water created by leaks in the city’s water pipes. Some have been there so long, they are marked on maps and fish have made them their homes. They are so deep, engineers have had to dive into them to fix the pipes. The leaks, along with the power supply problems, are the result of 20 years of neglect. The south of the country is in particularly bad shape after providing the battlefield for the Iran-Iraq war and suffering Saddam Hussein’s wrath after the 1991 uprising during the first Gulf War. Sanctions and vandalism have also taken their toll. Basra is fed with water from a main plant to the north of the city. When it breaks down, which is fairly regularly, people are forced to pay about 250 dinars (about 16 US cents) for a bucket of water from an osmosis plant. Even worse, some resort to taking contaminated water direct from the Shatt al-Arab river, leading to high levels of dysentery in the population. "These people are drinking polluted water and they’re dying," said Wally Weekes, manager of the Coalition Provisional Authority-sponsored water project. When it is working to full capacity, the plant should produce 430 litres per person per day for a city of more than one million people. But usually it runs at 50%. Already $6m (£3.3m) has been spent on fixing the leaks in Iraq’s four southern provinces, including Basra. In addition, pipes are being laid directly into areas of the city which suffer from low water pressure. They will be laid using manual labour, creating 1,800 jobs. By digging 10ft a day, the job should be completed by the end of May. In the future, the plan is to lay a new pipe around the city and build five reservoirs using $250m (£139m) of additional US Government aid. Its design illustrates the speed with which change is being achieved in post-war Iraq. The decision of how to spend the $250m was taken by Mr Weekes’ team in seven days. In Britain the same kind of investment would take years to get the go ahead. Despite the success of the work at the water plant, the manager Nasser Hussein fears the city could still be short of water in the height of summer. His concerns hinge on the capacity of the region’s power plant in Nasiriya to pump water south across flat plains to his plant. Without electricity, the water will not be available to his plant for filtering and distribution. Across the flat landscape of the southern provinces, there lies row upon row of electricity pylons with their tops broken and bent. Some are the result of sabotage to stop electricity generated in the south of Iraq flowing to Baghdad. Others have been stripped of their copper for resale. The national grid, it seems, was a mess. "As an engineer, I’ve been tremendously impressed by the way people have kept things going over the years," said Rod Matthews, manager of the Emergency Infrastructure Project. Worth $127m (£71m) in international grants, the project aims to make quick fixes to the infrastructure in the south before the handover from the coalition to the Iraqis at the end of June. Of that, $34m (£19m) is coming from the UK’s Department for International Development. It is designed to deliver more stable power supply to the region, improve fuel availability and deliver better water services. Aluminium conductor cables are being replaced and pylons fixed, often by Iraqi contractors. "Through the programme, we are fixing weak spots in the network," said Mr Matthews. "The network itself is a lot more robust but the task of strengthening it will go on for many years." |
| Posted by:Chuck Simmins |
| #1 20 years of neglect..i tell you it's all Bush's fault...if it wasn't for the Bush's war everything would be ok there..it's all Bush's fault for fighting a war for cheap oil..ya know we are benifiting from that cheap iraqi oil..... |
| Posted by: Dan 2004-03-31 1:44:06 PM |