Four Years Later, Many Iraqis Still Lack Reliable Water, Electricity

Major Power Plants Idled Due to Lack of Fuel

By Ali al-Mawsai

Assaman

Most of northern Iraq is without lights as two major power plants have been idled due to lack of fuel, a statement by the electricity ministry said.

The source said the plants feeding the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk are out of function as technicians failed to secure enough gas to run them.

The gas-driven plants are among the largest stations in the north which has been suffering from acute power shortages for years.

Electricity levels in Iraq as a whole are at all-time low. The average time power is on across the country has been almost reduced by two thirds since the U.S. invasion of 2003.

Major cities used to have an average of nine hours of electricity a day prior to the invasion. The average is currently 3 hours a day.

Iraq was generating nearly 5,000 megawatts before the U.S. invasion. But the generation capacity has slumped to less than 4,000 megawatts while consumption has soared.

Electricity ministry puts national demand at 7,000 megawatts. This means that the national grid is generating less than half the national demand judged by the average time Iraqis enjoy electricity.

Output has slumped despite massive investments. The U.S. alone has invested more than $3 billion in the power sector.

U.S. Struggles to Restore Drinking Water to Iraqis

By Bobby Caina Calvan

McClatchy Newspapers

The water tankers arrive twice a week in this parched village surrounded by fallow fields stretching into the horizon. The town's wells still pump out a flow, but few villagers dare drink from it unless in desperation.

At the gate of Kayria Fayhan's home, 250 gallons of the trucked-in cargo fill a metal tank for cooking and drinking, sometimes for washing up if itching from the groundwater becomes unbearable.

Even the "clean" water from the tanker is a gamble on some weeks. "They say the water is clean, but sometimes the water is green," Fayhan said. "Sometimes, there's rust floating in it."

Despite the fact that Iraq and U.S. officials have made water projects among their top priorities, the percentage of Iraqis without access to decent water supplies has risen from 50 percent to 70 percent since the start of the U.S.-led war, according to an analysis by Oxfam International last summer. The portion of Iraqis lacking decent sanitation was even worse -- 80 percent.

Now, though, some U.S. officials think they're about to make progress.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, using more than $1 billion in reconstruction funds, is building massive water treatment plants in urban areas, including one in the slums of Baghdad's Sadr City.

Construction crews over the last three years, working there under heavy guard, have constructed a treatment plant that will produce an additional 25 million gallons of drinking water daily, enough for nearly 200,000 people. Miles of new water lines are also being installed, allowing 2 million of Sadr City's residents to tap directly into the new plant and existing water supplies.

In Nasiriyah, a $277 million water treatment facility is to be handed over to Iraqis in December. It is billed as the largest facility of its kind in Iraq and is designed to provide clean drinking water for an estimated half-million people in southern Iraq.

As many as 1,500 water treatment and sewage projects have been completed, with 150 more in progress, according to the corps of engineers.

The aim is to deliver an additional 290 million gallons of water daily to the Iraqi population, and nearly three-fourths of that goal has been achieved, according to the corps. "From my travels, I think it's really getting better," said U.S. Navy Capt. Tom Brovarone, who is on assignment in Iraq for the corps.

Oxfam officials remain cautious.

"It's a bit premature to see how these projects will impact the situation," said Manal Omar, a regional program manager for Oxfam in the Middle East, who questioned whether the security situation will allow the new projects to take hold.