Posted on 03/26/2009 4:56:21 PM PDT by SandRat
FOB DELTA — Iraqis are cleaning the 250-kilometer Hahwar canal system to improve the distribution of water from the Tigris river to southwest Wasit province.
The canal system provides water to 59,000 acres of crop land, roughly 10 percent of the arable land in Wasit, which is home to over 2,000 farmers.
“It’s been almost two years since the canals were cleaned, and it was a government project,” said Ahmed Abed Alwaaly, the contractor in charge of the project. “This project is better.”
The $378,000 canal cleaning project is funded by the Iraqi Commanders’ Emergency Response Program (ICERP) and was implemented by the 41st Fires Brigade Civil Affairs Team in conjunction with the Wasit Provincial Reconstruction Team’s agricultural advisor.
“This project is combined with the Hahwar pumping station project, which is a 1.7 million dollar ICERP project,” said Col. Richard Francey, commander, 41st FB. “It will be interesting to see how far out we can get the water with these two projects.”
“The people here will be very happy with this project because it will help a lot of farmers,” said a local farmer to Francey. “A lot of people left this area because they were not making any money farming.”
“Before 2003, a lot of the agricultural products for the province came from this area,” said Alwaaly. “The people here are very poor, but they have big hearts.”
The canal cleaning project employs over 300 people a day with workers hired from local communities supported by the canal system.
The project is scheduled to run for six weeks, and the pumping station project has a projected completion date of September 2009.
This is very good news. Thank you SR.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.