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| Well-drilling has begun at 74 sites in rural areas. |
Washington, DC -- Weekly Update -- This fact sheet highlights overall accomplishments and some weekly activities from USAID’s reconstruction efforts in Iraq. For more information on USAID’s programs in Iraq please see: www.usaid.gov/iraq
Program Overview
USAID's goal is to improve the efficiency and reliability of existing water and wastewater treatment facilities, especially those in the south where water quantity and quality are particularly low. An anticipated 11.8 million Iraqis will benefit from USAID's $600 million in water and sanitation projects.
HIGHLIGHTS THIS WEEK
Work recently began at four new well sites as part of USAID’s rural water initiative. Operating under the Iraq Infrastructure Reconstruction Program, this initiative will drill approximately 110 wells in remote locations throughout Iraq. Depending on the quality of water at each site, groundwater treatment can be relatively simple or, in the case of areas where groundwater is high in salts, treatment may require reverse osmosis units.
Operations and Maintenance training will be provided to ensure the sustainability of the wells and treatment systems. The project will benefit about 550,000 rural Iraqis at 110 sites. Welldrilling has already begun at 74 other sites. USAID’s work to rehabilitate the Rustimiyah North Wastewater Treatment Plant is about 86 percent complete. One of the plant’s two processing lines is expected to start up next week after the completion of work on its biological treatment units.
About 33% of Baghdad’s effluent sewage flow from 4.8 million people is collected by sewer trunk lines and conveyed to this sewage treatment plant. Although designed to process 360,000 cubic meters/day (or 85 million gallons per day), Rustimiyah North has been inoperable for nearly two years. The plant did not receive the spare parts required to properly maintain facilities and post-conflict looting and vandalism left it out-of-operation. Inoperable sewage treatment facilities and overloaded sewer trunk lines have caused flooding of raw sewage in Sadr City and other densely-populated areas of Baghdad. Additionally, about 85 million gallons per day of raw sewage flows are discharged into a tributary of the Tigris River. Serious public health problems will exist for inner-city and downstream communities until Baghdad wastewater treatment facilities are restored to full efficiency.
The replacement or repair of Rustimiyah North’s civil, mechanical, and electrical systems is required to attain full efficiency of both process lines. Necessary civil works include dewatering and the removal of sludge, as well as cleaning treatment trains, all tanks, inlet works, and grit chambers. The process lines will be completely restored from inlet works to final discharge, with the addition of new primary and secondary clarifiers, scrapers, and screens.
Source: USAID, http://www.usaid.gov/
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