Posted on 06/15/2005 7:27:38 PM PDT by mdittmar
Nasiriyah, Iraq – Iraq’s clean water supply country-wide has ebbed slowly for decades because of war, an antiquated pipeline network and co-mingling with sewage as a result of illegal line tapping. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region South District is riding the waves of progress to get the people of southern Iraq the clean drinking water they need.
In the Thi Qar Province, the $173 million Nasiriyah Water Treatment Plant has two scopes of work: one is to finish the construction on the partially completed plant, and the other is to run water pipeline from Ash Shatrah to Suk Ash Sukyakh, and a pipeline north approximate seven kilometers to Har Al Diwiyah, according to Darrell Flinn, construction manager for the Water Sector, Gulf Region South District. He said that the former regime built many canals to take water all through the country so people could use it for their own needs, be it drinking or agriculture.
“At the Nasiriyah Water Treatment Project, they are constructing an intake structure that expands out over the Shatt Al Gharraf River, with pumps that will pump the water from Gharraf River and into the 10 large clarifiers to allow the sediments to settle,” said Flinn. “Many of the solids will filter out simply by gravity. The next step involves the mechanical mixing of the water with aluminum sulfate, commonly known as alum. This alum causes the remaining particles to actually coagulate prior to sending the water through the flocculators (a specialized mixing tank), which removes ‘flocs’ or clusters of sediments by allowing them to settle out in the flocculators.”
Having flowed through the flocculator, the water, now partially cleaned, is filtered through slow sand filters, said Flinn. He explained that the water goes into a dosing/ mixing tank where chlorine is added to kill the remaining bacteria as well as other bacteria which may lurk further along the pipeline. Once the sediment is removed and the chlorine added, the water is shot to an underground and an above-ground storage tank.
Flinn said that construction completion is scheduled to take place in November 2005, and systemization and operation will begin in March 2006. The contractor is going to have to put in a 33 kilovolt transformer at the plant, and run a 33 kilovolt transmission line four kilometers from the Ash Shatrah Sub Station to the plant.
As of May 21, some transmission pipe work had been installed, the construction of the raw water pump station foundation wall dowels and the perimeter forms have been completed and kicker form construction is underway, he said.
One of the challenges, according to Flinn, is the fact that pipelines in Iraq are 30 years old and leaking, co-mingling with sewer lines that are in the same shape because of the war. “We also have a situation where people tap into the water lines illegally to get water,” he said. “You also have a lot of open land fill areas where it runs off in to the canals and people are drinking it. Moreover, you have cattle in there too. It is a country-wide problem.”
The importance of the success of the mission at the Nasiriyah water treatment plant, said Flinn, depends on the fact that the citizens of Nasiriyah and Thi Qar Province understand that the drinking water supplied by this plant is for them and only them. It is not being piped outside of the province. Some rumors have even emerged that it is being piped to Kuwait. This is simply not true. This water belongs to the citizens of the province, period.”
Flinn said the GRS Water Sector has projects for everything from rehabilitation of potable water pipeline networks, to new construction of pipeline networks, and turnkey water treatment facilities. He also said that two other water treatment plants in Nasiriyah are being rehabilitated, and that three compact units will be built in the Missan Province and 14 are currently in various stages of completion in Najaf Province.
“In Basrah, we have several different projects,” he said. “We have the Al Tannumah water tower repair project, but the largest is the leak repairs we will be doing all over the city. We will be repairing and patching existing lines. There is close to $9 million for four water main extension jobs, five compact water treatment units at R-Zero, Basrah’s million gallon-per-day treatment unit.
Flinn said the water projects with reverse osmosis cost about $45,000 more to start, but they are capable of removing salt from the water and making the water drinking quality makes up for the initial price tag.
Water pipelines may be as big a target as oil pipelines.
I'm hoping that the Iraqi people do. This will be the first time in decades that they have had safe, pure drinking water. The lives that will be saved as a result are incalculable.
I would think that destroying a water pipe would be sure to bring down the wrath of the local population upon the Jihadistan whackos. Bet on such destruction resulting in a number of tips from thirsty local Iraqi natives.
They haven't been hitting the oil pipelines lately. They were hitting them fairly often last summer and fall and blackening the skies, but they've backed off on that lately for some reason.
Stop watching that TV news. Think positive thoughts about Iraq. It's going to work!
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