Residents pay for water as rehabilitation continues

Many people in the southern Iraqi city of Basra are still unable to drink water straight from taps due to high salinity. Residents are continuing to buy water, which many say is proving to be expensive. People in the city are currently buying stocks of drinking water from street vendors and RO (reverse osmosis) plants that remove salt. However, some people have complained that the water they buy is of poor quality and unfit to drink. On average, families in Basra buy 20 litres of water a day for around 350 to 500 dinars, about US 0.40 cents, but at a time when unemployment is high local people say it's an additional cost they don't need right now. Meanwhile, work on rehabilitating the water system is ongoing. A number of major water construction and repair projects, costing over US $250 million, are being carried out to improve the supply of water to the inhabitants of Basra. Most of Iraq's water treatment plants no longer function or do so intermittently as a result of two decades of neglect. The projects include laying 48 km of new water mains to 12 urban areas which have little or no water supplies, a network of supply pipes around the city, six new RO plants for drinking water and 63 new water distribution centres. In addition to this, renovation work is under way at Basra's main water treatment plant with a programme to repair leaking pipes. The most urgent work will be completed by July, while some major infrastructure projects will continue until the end of 2005. Colin McBride, the CPA utilities spokesperson, told IRIN in Basra that the projects are part of $127 million allocated to improve electricity, water and fuel services in southern Iraq through the Emergency Infrastructure Program (EIP), funded by the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the US government. According to McBride, 16 water projects are under way including supplying material and equipment to rapidly repair water pipes and provide new pipes to bring water from upgraded water treatment works to areas with a poor water supply. "The water in Basra is fairly salty. Even if all the existing water treatment plants are repaired, they cannot go back to their original standard because the water will still contain heavy metal," McBride said, adding that salinity had increased over the past 30 years. "The draining of the marshes and the Ataturk Dam built in Turkey affected the salinity standard of the water. It's like sea water. Even after filtering and cleaning, the water still contains salt." McBride said that Basra, like some European cities, would always have two types of water, one from the tap which could be used for washing and other purposes, and another source for drinking. "We will soon have brand new RO osmosis plants in 63 distribution points. With this we will regulate water prices so that the RO water sellers will have to either reduce their business or will have to lower their prices and give good quality water," he explained. Abdel Sattar Akef, head of Basra's water administration, told IRIN that the salinity standard or Total Dissolved Salts (TDS) has an international level of 200 to 300. "The water we use from the taps in Basra reaches 600 to 800 TDS. In 1989 we had a case when it reached 7,800," Akef said, adding that at that time they had to import a large amount of water. With the new water projects in process, Akef hoped that people in Basra would at least have access to RO water. "Nobody can have the RO units further than 400 metres away from their residence. Besides, it will be 30 percent cheaper in most areas, and even 90 percent cheaper in the poorer areas," Akef said, hoping for a reduction in the cost of water.