Ministers fired

The ministers of water and heath today were forced to resign in the aftermath of the latest water problems in the Manshieh area of Mafraq. A number of senior bureaucrats were fired as well.

While it is not obvious why the minister of heath was shown the door, I have had my reservations about the minister of water for a while. Unlike the assertion of Fahed Fanek that ministers don’t have to be “brilliant”, it is clear that the ministry of water and irrigation needs to have competence and vision.

I am sure that now, they have now learnt their lesson, and somebody will be chosen who has a proven track record technically and administratively. No more appointments based on geographic origin or sponsorship from big politicians. No more appointing ministers because their father was a minister. Yes sir. They must have learnt their lesson THIS TIME!

Irbid water crisis

The water situation in Irbid this year has been bad from the beginning. I suspect that a large part of the problem is that Syria has not allowed any significant volume of water to flow into the Yarmouk River. Of course, as long as Syria broadcasts a complimentary TV program on the occasion of Jordan’s Independence Day, who cares if 400,000 people have to get by with no water?

Added to this, the water fiasco over the last two weeks in Mafraq has meant that absolutely no water has been pumped to large swaths of the city for the past two weeks. Tanker drivers selling water are making a killing, selling the water to the highest bidders. The cost of three cubic meters of water is now selling for over 25 dinars. This volume of water is barely enough for a small family for a week.

This is another crisis brewing. Notice that the government will not take any action until it is too late. This time is fast approaching.

The Disi project (yet again)

I attended a talk by Abdulkarim Gharaibeh a while back. In it, he reminisced about a meeting he had with the prime minister in 1985. At the time, the prime minister told Gharaibeh and other attendees that the government had two top priorities: exploiting the oil shale in Jordan and pumping water from the Disi aquifer to Amman. At this point, the audience roared with laughter, as 22 years later, the government is still saying the same things.

Last year, the government offered a tender to do the project. Back then, I said that the government was buying time. Sure enough, it is time to announce who won the contract. The government is dallying, and the PM now is suggesting that it will be too expensive. Fahd Khitan (Al Arab Al Yawm) suggests that people with vested interests (powerful people) are fighting against implementation of the project. While this may be a factor, most likely is that the project is too expensive. Can’t they just say it?

I know. They should offer another tender. Surely that government would have changed by the time a new decision has to be made.

More on the Karamah dam discussion

Yesterday, Minister of Water and Irrigation Zafer Alem gave his point of view with regard to the Karamah dam, which the parliament is now examining. He was deeply involved in the decision, so it is understandable that he would defend the project.

The main defense Alem offered was that the project was studied by a British consulting firm, Sir Alexander Gibb and associates. He says that the Gibb report suggested that washing out the dam a few times will remove all the salt in the area. He said that “the strategy to clean out the salt could not be implemented because of drought from 1997 to 2006 prevented it”. Of course, I have not noticed this 9 year drought that he is talking about, unless of course you are comparing Jordan to Scotland. The bottom line was that water managers had more pressing needs to meet than to waste 50 million cubic meters of water on a salty useless dam. Anybody who understands the water situation in Jordan would have foreseen that.

It is interesting that invoking the name of a British firm is believed to be enough to silence critics. It is as if the minister is saying “Since a tall, blond, blue eyed consultant said it was OK, then we are not to be blamed”. I mean, who are you going to believe, a local expert or a foreigner? This logic holds even after the project is a proven failure.

It is interesting to note that Gibb and associates were involved in another multi million Dinar disaster in Jordan. They designed a dike system for the Arab Potash company which subsequently collapsed (scroll to page 7). Oops. It seems that despite the fancy name, Sir Alexander Gibb and associates sends over people like this fellow, who, at the tender age of 17, and five years before receiving his engineering degree, was a Junior Engineer for Gibb, in charge of “Site investigation interpretive reporting and analysis of embankment settlement and stability (for Arab Potash Project, Jordan)”.

Now, there are thousands of qualified people in Jordan who are capable of doing engineering and geological studies. Why not ask them for their advice? They would certainly cost less than our foreign blue eyed friends, and they understand the local environment. The answer is that our decision makers still think that “Il frinji brinji” (what is foreign is good). At least, you might intimidate your critics with a fancy consultants’ name when things go bad.

Anyway, a friend of mine suggests a new use for the dam. He says that we can take the cucumbers from the Jordan Valley, and throw them into the dam to make a giant pickle factory. Too bad Alem didn’t think of that.

The Karamah dam inquiry

About ten years ago, the Karamah dam in the Jordan Valley was completed at a cost of over fifty million dinars. It lies at the terminus of a side valley known as Wadi Mallahah (the salty valley). Anyway, the idea was to use the dam to store excess water from the King Abdullah canal for use in the summer. Since then the dam has not been used, because the water stored in it became too salty for agriculture or domestic water use. The minister says that we will be able to use it eventually, after all of the salt has been washed out of the soils adjacent to the dam. In the mean time, we can desalinate the water. Geological studies indicate that there is a salt water aquifer beneath the dam that is supplying to the water body, so it looks like we will have to wait a while yet before the dam becomes clean of salt. The ministry of water thinks that tourists might like to come and enjoy the sight. After all, there are no large bodies of salt water in the Jordan valley that tourists might want to visit, are there?

The parliament has discovered this to be an issue, in something that I would brand a meaningless gesture. The parliamentarians are demanding to know why the project is a failure, and have set a date for next Monday to discuss the issue. Sure, good geologic studies of the area would have led to discarding this site. Sure, experts warned at the time that this is a waste of money. But what is the point? Is somebody going to give us our money back?

The point is that the country is currently contemplating a number of multi million and multi billion dinar projects such as the Disi conveyance system and the Red Dead canal project. Some experts have concerns about these projects, but none of these concerns are resonating with the public or politicians.

I guess we will read about parliamentary inquiries into currently considered projects in ten or fifteen years, when it is too late.

The ministry of water and the Zerqa River

After feigning ignorance as to the source of sewage flowing into the Zerqa River, the ministry of water and irrigation solved the problem by rebuilding an earthen dam that it had torn down at the beginning of winter. The issue only was solved after the press got involved. The press took three weeks to report the story, and the ministry took three days to fix it after that.

Of course, damming up the sewage behind an earthen dam is not really a solution. The dam was torn down for the winter because the runoff forming after the rains can wash away the poop. Since the winter has been dry thus far, the poop stagnated.

Waiting for the runoff to wash away the problem implies that it will go away. This is not true, as the water ends up in the King Talal Dam. Water in the dam is largely used for irrigation, as it is not good enough for human consumption. This is because of inadequate treatment of wastewater at the Khirbit as Samra plant near Zerqa, as well as the general attitude that the system is open for waste disposal (as the case of the earthen dam displays). I have written more on the issue earlier.

Despite the vital role of the Zerqa River to most of the population of the country, management of the system still seems to be haphazard and minimalist. It is a shame that the ministry of water and irrigation does not seem to appreciate the importance of clean water and of clean rivers. It is also a shame that the ministry is treating the public in such patently poor faith. Of course, this is not the only example.

Hire some plumbers, please

The Zerqa river is being polluted by sewage for the second time this year. In January, the problem was solved in a couple of days. This time, the leakage has been ongoing for the last three weeks. I suppose that this time, the press has been slow to report the story. This might explain the complacency shown by the ministry of water and irrigation, who blame “clogged manholes and illegal sewage connections”.

I really have a hard time swallowing this. Does it take three weeks to fix a clogged manhole?

Come to think about it, I can believe it. The water pipe down the street from where I live spurts out a medium sized stream every week when the water is coming. The water authority has probably “fixed” it dozens of times. It is only a ¾ inch pipe, for crying out loud. Can’t they hire a few plumbers?

The Disi project again

Last December, the government decided that it would go ahead and build the Disi conveyance system itself, after failing to attract investors to built and operate it under the BOT (build, operate and transfer) model. Previously, it had taken a decision to establish public holding company to do the investment, and before that it had contracted to Armed Forces Investment fund to do the work.

A couple of days ago, the government changed its mind again. According to the press reports, a new tender will be floated to attract an investor to do it according to the BOT model. It is not obvious that they will get any offer that is superior to what was offered to them three years ago, although the Al Rai report suggests that some new investors are interested.

Call me cynical, but I don't buy it. The bottom line is that the project doesn't make economic or environmental sense. This hesitation as to what "model" to use is simply a thin cover for the fact that the government doesn't have the heart to tell people that it doesn't want to do it. The project has broad support from the public and from politicians, so the government is buying more time by going again into the cycle of tenders, bids, studies and negotiations. It will be another year before they have to make another decision, maybe longer if they can stretch out the negotiations.

Now, it is not unheard of for governments to build projects that are economically unfeasible but have social benefits. Estimates of the building costs are around the 600 million dollar mark. However, a thin budget for capital investments means that the government simply is paying its running costs, with no extra money to fund a project like this. The minister of water and irrigation says that his ministry has the staff and expertise needed to do it themselves. I am sure that is true, but it does us little good.

The structural problem is that the water is too far away. A conveyance system to Aqaba was built because it made sense, without much fan fare. I don't see why it is important to encourage the growth of Amman. A fresh look at the issue might lead to the conclusion that the water might be better used to foster economic growth in the south of the country, which needs the water more desperately than Amman does.

The Disi project

The shortage of water in Jordan has become a major concern to both the government and to average citizens. The official numbers tell us that the total consumption of water in the country is about 1300 million cubic meters (with a deficit of about 220 MCM). Of this, about 276 MCM is destined for domestic use, and the majority of the rest used in agriculture. In 2003, 96 MCM was designated for Amman.

Now, the government target for domestic purposes is about 200 liters per day per capita. Given a population of 5.3 million, this works out about 365 million, whereas the current supply averages 143 liters per day per capita.

While we currently get by using this volume of water, the question that is unanswered concerns the long term sustainability of the current system, given increased requirements posed by population growth and increased demands by tourism and industry.

The Disi conveyor system has been discussed intensively over the last ten years, and is considered to be one of the answers to the vexing question of water supply in Jordan. As it is envisioned, the project will supply about 100 MCM per year to Amman. What is delaying the project is the question of economic viability. The financial aspects have gone through much review, with the final decision being made to use government funds to build the project. This decision was made because the project is not tempting from a financial perspective. The supply is expected to last about 50 years (Al Rai's report says 40 in the middle of the article and 100 at the end, with no effort to explain the discrepancy). Eventually, the fossil water from the aquifer will run out.

So, the question is how badly do we need this project. We are still reading reports that the amount of leakage from the distribution is 50% in Amman, and 64% in Mafraq. In numbers, this suggests leakage of 140 MCM per year in Jordan. This number is greater than the amount slated to be pumped from Disi.

Now, the most important question to ask is whether the increased supply of expensive water pumped from over 300 km away will translate into more water for people? Specifically, since the distribution system leaks so much, will the new water supply simply slip away after we get it? Moreover, how expensive could it be to stop the leakage from the system? Estimates suggest that it is highly cost effective to invest here, and I would guess that it would be a better bargain than the Disi project. Every time water is pumped through the distribution systems, I see rivers of water flowing down the street. Nobody notices, and the Water Authority (or Lima) doesn't seem to care less.

I am not against the Disi project in itself. I just hope that we don't spend all this money just to have this precious water leak through our distribution system. The same goes for all the other water supply projects that are being implemented.