The Tigris sustains her neighbors

by Claude D. McKinney
Gulf Region North
US Army Corps of Engineers

Tikrit, Iraq — Iraq has two major historic waterways coursing through its landscape. Civilization has been located along the Tigris and Euphrates for millennia. The flow of these rivers may have ebbed during some of those past seasons, but the population growth certainly has expanded, especially in recent decades. Rapid growth outstripped the former government’s ability or maybe desire to tap the river for its precious life giving liquid.

As coalition reconstruction planners met with Iraq ministers, they initially identified a number of sites for the placement of compact water purification units along the Tigris River. Each of the prescribed systems, a modified “Macedonian” compact water unit, is capable of supplying purified water to 24,000 people. Many of the units will not be working to full capacity. It was planned for their capability to be fully used as future infrastructure pipe lines and improvements are made.

Within the province of Salah ad Din alone, there are six such sites. Two of them are nearing completion in suburb communities of Tikrit.

At Albow Ageel, the completed unit will initially deliver water to almost 8,000 residents of seven adjacent villages. A work crew on this day was placing rock material along the river bank to avoid “scour” and possible damage to the pump apparatus during high water. The Iraq foreman (not identified for security reasons), said through a translator, “This pump is important to us because we have not had water here.” He indicated there were s3everal more communities which will eventually get the water too. They are awaiting the placement of supply pipes to receive it. When asked about security, he said, “No security problems, we (indicating all the villagers in the region with a wave of his hand) all want the water.”

This new water compact unit sits on a many year old water treatment site which never had a working system put in place. “When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers showed up to over watch the construction, there was nothing but an old slab of concrete and a looted building on the site,” said Scott Bullock, project engineer for the Corps. At about 85 percent complete, this site now only needs the placement and hook-up of the already delivered treatment tanks and the fabrication and connection of the electrical control panel. New are security walls around the tank complex and an intake platform which will be protected from the rivers ravages.

Sandfilter and coagulation/flocculation tanks in place ready for hook-up. Roughly translated, the words on the sandfilter tank informs onlookers during its transit that the tank really is going to Al Alam for the community water system. (GRD Photo by Claude D. McKinney)

At Al-Alam, 35 minutes away, the new treatment system is being built from the ground up in a stand of river wood. It will tie into an existing system. With an anticipated modification to install an additional 6,000 meters of pipe, this system will provide water to more than 6,000 additional residents of several neighboring villages. The local construction manager indicated, all they had left to do is place and connect the control panel and a back-up generator. Additionally, they have a few other items to make the administration and storage building fully functional, and there are still some pipe connections to be bolted tight. Of course, the entire system will require purging and sanitation before it can go on line to feed the communities.

Bullock explained, “These units are called ‘modified’ Macedonian, because we have included a chlorination step to kill bacteria, after the sand filter. Otherwise it is just like other systems which have been used in this northern part of Iraq for many decades. The water is pumped from the river, sent through a particle settling process (coagulation and flocculation), a sand filter, the added chlorination step, and sent along to the users.”

Although these two projects are in the Tikrit community, they are clearly in the more rural parts. The farmers and village citizens these two treatment plants supply, will receive from them a quality of water which they have not known for decades – water they can drink without additional processing. Future reconstruction projects will connect more of the surrounding communities to these systems.

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