Photo: Mike White

The head of Khanaqin’s water department with a sample of treated water

KHANAQIN, 30 December 2003 (IRIN) - It looks as if a packet of aspirin has been dissolved in it. Then a teaspoon of mud has been stirred in. But, as it goes, this is as good as water gets in the northeastern town of Khanaqin. The water has come out of a at the town’s water directorate, but few of the staff would be prepared to drink it. The department's senior technical adviser, Abd al-Karim Ibrahim Isma'il, told IRIN that the cloudy water in the glass in front of him had actually been through the town’s treatment plant. But a dilapidated network of pipes meant that by the time it got to the tap at his office and most houses in Khanaqin, it had been affected by seepage of contaminated water and even sewage. The water treatment plant in Khanaqin is currently running at 50 percent of its capacity. Abd al-Karim, who joined the department in 1990, said the problems had always been the same. But now there was hope that the residents of the mainly Kurdish town might soon be able to drink water that would not make them sick. That help had come by way of the American NGO Mercy Corps (MC), which is implementing a major water and sanitation project in Khanaqin. Its field office manager in northern Iraq, Robert Pianka, told IRIN that MC was trying to support the local authorities in renovating and reconstructing a supply system which had received little or no maintenance for decades. "In a region that’s rich with water resources, what is consumed by the people is a mixture of unclean natural water and sewage," he said. MC is channelling funding to water projects, as well as providing the water department with technical assistance and other forms of assistance. A major project is to reconstruct the department's giant storage tank at its water treatment plant, which collapsed and has remained in disrepair for the last 10 years. Without the gravity system provided by the tank, there is little pressure to get water to people’s houses, and the sluggish flow along the pipes allows bad water to seep in more easily. MC has put the project out to tender, and work will hopefully be completed late next year. However, Pianka says it will probably be two years before clean water is available to most residents, and dirty water effectively channelled away. After this happens, it will be for local and central governments to take over the maintenance of the system. Pianka said Khanaqin’s residents suffered the effects of unclean water in a way no Westerner would tolerate. "The atrophied capacity of Iraqis to effectively demand primary services from their authorities is an issue. You would expect people who are drinking urine with their water to be angry and would get together to make demands on the local authorities," he said. Pianka added that the culture of complaining, let alone organised protest, was foreign to people who had lived under the repression of Saddam Hussein’s regime. He said if there was any impurity in Western water supplies there would be an immediate uproar. However, in Khanaqin recently, people went without water for three days before some women individually went to the water department to see what could be done for them. Across the road in his water directorate office, Abd al-Karim said the town’s water infrastructure was overstretched. Its four main stations were operating around the clock, but even then could supply water to only 31,550 of the town's 43,780 residents. The rest had to supply themselves from wells or directly from the muddy flow of the main rivers. Clean water was tankered to surrounding villages, but many still had to drink impure water and suffer the attendant illnesses, Abd al-Karim said. However, he too is hopeful that within a year or two the system would be greatly improved, thanks to MC's work. "If Mercy Corps wasn’t here, the future would be dark. They are our great rescuers." He said the NGO had come to the town after this year’s war when the water department had run out of fuel to operate its pumping plants and was relying on sporadic electric power to get water to houses. MC had immediately procured diesel and continued this support along with much other assistance. Abd al-Karim pushes the cloudy glass of water across the desk and shakes his head. At least it is better than what it used to be 10 years ago, he says, but he’s still going to wait for a glass of tea to quench his thirst.