Add it to the bill

Update on the agricultural losses of the July 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. In the Bekaa alone: 5,000 farmers affected, $20 millions in material losses.

Message in a bottle

"So, with her reusable plastic Nalgene bottles dry and her son Charlie working up a thirst in an indoor playground, she broke down and bought a bottle of water. To most people it would be a simple act of self-refreshment, but to Ms. Pollack it was also a minor offense against the planet — think of all the oil used to package, transport and refrigerate that water.

“Something about it felt like a betrayal,” said Ms. Pollack, who otherwise does not consider herself an ardent environmentalist. She said she decided to stop buying water after hearing friends talk about the impact of America’s bottled water habit. And now she is doing what she can to spread the word." (thanks D.)

Dropping the bottle habit needs clean tap water, a state responsibility. State? What state? Tap water quality in Lebanon is one of the worst in the world. Supply is intermittent and water has to be stored in roof top reservoirs open to contamination. Pipe network is also corroded and contaminated from sewage pipes (also corroded). Water is also heavily chlorinated, and while this reduces the bacterial load, it is a problem of its own.

Private assets

Privatisation of water assets have long been mooted as a solution to the Middle East’s water issues.

Privatisation of water utilities would not be disastrous but it is important not to pursue the policy simply because it’s fashionable, and history suggests that creating a win-win for all parties over the long term is far from assured.

The private operator has few economic incentives to promote water conservation because a corporation’s chief goal is to maximise profits, which often means encouraging increased consumption.

"Private water companies also have little reason to leave sufficient water for ecological needs, endangered species and other downstream uses.

Privatisation agreements may also result in reduced water quality because private water companies make decisions based on profitability rather than public health. Especially in the case of asset sales, there is concern about land that may be subject to development.

When a private operator purchases a municipality’s water-related assets, they may include the municipality’s watershed areas as well as industrial equipment.

Since preservation of watershed lands does not generate revenue, the operator may either want to develop the watershed area or sell it off to others for development.

In many US communities where water has been privatised, there has been an increased risk of rate hikes, inadequate customer service and reduced local control.

Therefore, governments in the Middle East embracing the path of privatisation should ensure that the terms include employing clear and consistent standards, strong public oversight and strict scrutiny of any deals by independent organisations."

a good overview of the expected demand on water in the gulf.

Southern water

ذكرت صحيفة «معاريف» الإسرائيلية، أمس، أن الجيش الإسرائيلي يراقب أعمال بناء البيوت في جنوب لبنان، بمحاذاة الشريط الحدودي مع إسرائيل، وهو يخشى من أن يستخدمها حزب الله كمواقع عسكرية ومراقبة تحت غطاء أنها منازل لمدنيين لبنانيين.
وقالت الصحيفة إن عملية بناء مكثفة لمئات المباني المحاذية للسياج، بدأت تظهر في الأشهر الثلاثة الأخيرة. لكنها أقرّت بأن «هدف هذه المباني غير واضح»، مشيرةً إلى وجود مخاوف لدى الجيش من أن تكون هذه المنازل مواقع خفيّة لحزب الله. واستشهدت الصحيفة ببناء عشرات المباني والمصانع، خلال الأشهر الأخيرة، في القطاع السياجي المحاذي للمطلة، وبعضها في أماكن لم تكن مأهولة من قبل اللبنانيين.
ونقلت عن مصادر عسكرية إسرائيلية قولها إنه «ما من شك في أن هناك وتيرة بناء عالية، وقد بدأ في الفترة الأخيرة ظهور عدد متزايد من المصانع التي يتم بناؤها بمحاذاة الحدود، لكن هذا لا يفسر شيئاً، ونحن نراقب هذه التطورات ولا نستخف بها».
ومما أثار الدهشة، بحسب «معاريف»، أن بعض المباني تم بناؤها في أمكنة قريبة من مصادر المياه في المطلة والغجر. وتم أيضاً «تشييد مبنى كبير، لم يعرف ما هو هدفه، على بعد كيلومترين من المنطقة المأهولة من كفركلا، وعلى بعد 300 متر فقط من الحدود مع إسرائيل».
ونقلت «معاريف» عن سلطات المياه الإسرائيلية قولها «نحن نشعر بأن استهلاك المياه في الأعلى (لبنان) يتزايد، وتجري برامج لاستغلال عالٍ لمصادر المياه، وإن هناك احتمالاً للمس بموضوع كميات وحتى بنوعية المياه التي تصل إلى إسرائيل».
كما نقلت الصحيفة عن رئيس اتحاد المزارعين دوبي أميتي قوله إن «هناك العديد من المباني التي يصعب اليوم معرفة نيات اللبنانيين منها، وهو ما قد يبدو تمويهاً لشيء ما، لكن شعوري الشخصي أن بعض المباني يستخدم كمصدر ضخ للمياه التي تصل من الحاصباني والوزاني».
وختمت الصحيفة أنه «في الوقت الذي يتروّى فيه الجيش من ربط طفرة البناء بحزب الله، فإن سكان المطلة القدماء الذين يعرفون جيرانهم لا يشكّون بذلك». ونقلت عن أحد المزارعين في المستوطنة قوله «ليس لديّ شك بأن الذراع الطويلة لحزب الله هي من تدفع سكان جنوب لبنان للبناء بالقرب من السياج»، مضيفاً «لقد حددنا لأنفسنا بألّا نسمح لأيّ أمر بأن يضرّ بعملنا وبروتين حياتنا القائم في الوقائع الجديدة منذ حرب لبنان الثانية».

عدد الجمعة ١٠ آب

From today's Al-Akhbar, a small news item within the article on Ron Arad (that's why i didn't link). This item is interesting: it says that Maarev has reported that the israeli army is following closely the building of "large houses" near the Israeli border (note: in Lebanon), which are causing concern as the goal of these buildings is "unclear" (???). Maarev also reports from the israeli water authority its concerns about what it perceives as an increase in water consumption in ...Lebanon, which will affect the quantity of water that reaches Israel and also its quality. One of the farmers in the colonial outpost of metullah said he believes these houses are camouflaged pumping stations. He adds that the colonizers in Metullah know their Lebanese neighbors well, and that they have no doubt this is a hizbullah conspiracy to use...Lebanese water.

Now this is really interesting because it brings the whole issue of southern water back to the surface: there is no doubt that Israel's colonial outposts in northern Palestine (moshavs and kibbutz) are in dire need for water, especially for irrigation, if they are to continue fulfilling their function (see previous post on Aytaroun and moshav avivim). This water comes from only one place: Lebanon, especially the hasbani river watershed. The water allocation between Lebanon and Israel is still regulated by the Johnston agreement of 1955. But Israel has regularly used force to prevent the Lebanese from using their share of water. Here's a self explanatory excerpt from a report published on the UN foreign Policy Forum:

"...the potential for future tension over the use of water from the Hasbani river. The Hasbani flows down the western flank of the tri-border pocket, passing Ghajar and crossing the Lebanon-Israel border three kilometers south of the village. It feeds into the Upper Jordan and runs into the Sea of Galilee, the Jewish state's largest supply of surface water. The Wazzani springs beside Ghajar are the only source of water for the river during the hot dry summer months.

Last March, the Council for the South installed a small pump and a pipe 10 centimeters in diameter to supply drinking water from the Wazzani springs to the nearby village of Arab Louaize. In response, Israel warned that unchecked pumping of the Hasbani's water could spark a war.

Tempers flared again in June when a local farmer, Hussein Abdullah, announced that he intended to pump water from the Hasbani, one kilometer below the Wazzani springs, via an 18-centimeter pipe to irrigate some 3,000 dunums of land he owned nearby.

Although the amount of water being diverted from the river is inconsequential, the UN is aware that, given Israel's acute water shortage, an argument over the Hasbani could spark a more serious confrontation than the recent heated rhetoric.

An attempt in the 1960s to divert the Hasbani away from Israel led to a series of military confrontations, culminating in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The figures on the Hasbani's water flow are vague, varying between 110 million cubic meters (mcm) per year to 146mcm. The 1955 Johnston Agreement on regional water sharing which was never fully ratified allocated to Lebanon 35mcm per year of water from the Hasbani. But Lebanon is not believed to be utilizing more than 10mcm per year."

Israel has bombed countless times governmental installations to pump Lebanese water, as well as small scale farmer's pumps. As my friend Angry Arab would say: "This is Zionism".

Nile

Very good article on water and farming and the poor in Egypt: "The revolt of the thirsty".

No pasaran

""Besides subsistence farming, Felipe once worked in construction. But he hasn’t been able to find time for paid work in the last three years. Instead, he’s been leading a group known as the Council of Ejidos and Communities in Opposition to La Parota Dam (CECOP). Within the region, support for the dam has been as fervent as opposition to it, and Felipe and the hundreds of other members of CECOP have found it challenging to compete against the CFE’s promises of development and prosperity.

“I was there with him in the front seat of the truck when they killed him with a single shot to the head,” Eugenia said. “We were coming back from a demonstration against the building of the dam, and our neighbor Cirilo Cruz, whom everyone knew was a supporter of the dam, just shot him.” Eugenia’s two school-age children stood by her feet, seemingly unaware of the meaning and weight of her words."

“They told us that once the Papagayo River is turned into a dam, we’ll be able to make a living by fishing,” she said. “But I’m not a fisherman—I’ve never fished before. The only thing I know how to do is farm.”"

Reminder

"At the other extreme, the 29 countries in the near east region account for 14% of the world’s land area and are home to 10% of the world’s human population. Yet the whole region has only about 2% of the world’s renewable freshwater resources.[15] While the global average availability is 7000 cubic meters of water per person per year, in these countries the average is 1577 cubic meters of water per person per year.[15] In Jordan and the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates only 170-200 cubic meters of renewable water resources are available per person per year, less than 3% of the global average.[15]"

Water gets scarcer

From a recent article by Lester Brown. Read it in the context of reduced food supplies and increasing grain prices.

"Saudi Arabia, a country of 25 million people, is as water-poor as it is oil-rich. Relying heavily on subsidies, it developed an extensive irrigated agriculture based largely on its deep fossil aquifer. After several years of using oil money to support wheat prices at five times the world market level, the government was forced to face fiscal reality and cut the subsidies. Its wheat harvest dropped from a high of 4 million tons in 1992 to some 2 million tons in 2005. Some Saudi farmers are now pumping water from wells that are 1,200 meters deep (nearly four fifths of a mile).

In neighboring Yemen, a nation of 21 million, the water table under most of the country is falling by roughly 2 meters a year as water use outstrips the sustainable yield of aquifers. In western Yemen’s Sana’a Basin, the estimated annual water extraction of 224 million tons exceeds the annual recharge of 42 million tons by a factor of five, dropping the water table 6 meters per year. World Bank projections indicate the Sana’a Basin—site of the national capital, Sana’a, and home to 2 million people—will be pumped dry by 2010.

In the search for water, the Yemeni government has drilled test wells in the basin that are 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) deep—depths normally associated with the oil industry—but they have failed to find water. Yemen must soon decide whether to bring water to Sana’a, possibly by pipeline from coastal desalting plants, if it can afford it, or to relocate the capital. Either alternative will be costly and potentially traumatic.

Israel, even though it is a pioneer in raising irrigation water productivity, is depleting both of its principal aquifers—the coastal aquifer and the mountain aquifer that it shares with Palestinians. Israel’s population, whose growth is fueled by both natural increase and immigration, is outgrowing its water supply. Conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians over the allocation of water in the latter area are ongoing. Because of severe water shortages, Israel has banned the irrigation of wheat."

Will they privatize Zamzam?

Water privatization through the process of public private partnerships (PPPs) is a step closer to becoming the reality of water production and distribution in Saudi Arabia.

The process of reform in the water industry recently took a major step with the formation of the National Water Company (NWC) and approval of its bylaws by the Supreme Economic Council (SEC).

The plan intends to achieve a separation (unbundling) of water and wastewater operations on a city-by-city basis and offer wastewater treatment plants to the private sector on contract terms yet to be finalized.

Endless litany

The great Litani river, the longuest river of Lebanon, the one with the largest watershed, the one Israel wants so badly that it went to war for it, the Litani is so polluted that at some places in the West Bekaa, all that is left from it is a large sewer where algae grows unchecked.

And this is not new: As early as 1937, the Sawt al Shaeb newspaper ran a list of request by local people complaining about the pollution of the water and demanding the Lebanese Government (under French Mandate) to provide the villages with clean drinking water and irrigation water.

Arabic article in al Akhbar