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Iraq: Water Treatment

Answer

In 2003, Iraq's 140 major water treatment facilities were operating at about 35 per cent of their design capacity (3 billion litres a day) due to inadequate maintenance, lack of plant operators, power shortages and looting. The international donor community, including the UK, US, World Bank and Japanese, are helping improve the efficiency and reliability of existing treatment facilities and the US has constructed several new facilities, especially in the south where water quality is particularly poor. The Department for International Development has committed more than £100 million to infrastructure regeneration projects in Iraq. By May, we will have improved access to water for 1 million people. We have replaced 200 kilometres of water mains, repaired over 5,000 leaks, cleared out 7,000 septic tanks and cleared more than 40 kilometres of drains. We have refurbished a reverse osmosis unit in Basra to supply potable water to about 500,000 people. We have also improved water supply to 60,000 people in al-Amtahiyah, and constructed a water training centre in Basra to increase the skills of Iraqi engineers in water treatment and leakage repair. Finally, we have provided technical advice for a major sewage installation in al-Amarah, providing up to half the city's population with access to a piped system and replacing open sewage channels. The US has rehabilitated the Sweet Water Canal system, repairing breaches, cleaning and repairing the main water storage and settling reservoir and refurbishing 14 water treatment plants around Basra city. The UK Royal Engineers have completed a project, funded by DfID, to install low lift pumps to provide a secondary source of domestic water supply to the 2 million population of Basra. The two World Bank emergency water and sanitation projects in Iraq are being funded through the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq (IRFFI)—a multilateral mechanism made up of two trust funds, one managed by the United Nations and the other by the World Bank. Donors have pledged more than $1.77 billion for reconstruction projects through the IRFFI, of which DfID made a contribution of $127 million in 2004.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

700 c252-3WA; 2685

Session

2007-08

Subjects

Development aid International assistance Infrastructure Iraq Water supply Sanitation Reconstruction Basra Water treatment

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk