|
In the vast and lush plain of the Shinelle lowlands,
30km west of the town of Dire Dawa and a few
kilometers from Melka Jebdu, are scattered close to
eight boreholes, seemingly less significant beyond
serving not more than 1,500 members of this farming
community of Hasseliso.
At the centre lays an imposing concert water
collecting tank, built on a plot taken from the
family of Hassen Ali; himself claiming to have the
distinction of building his house from hallow blocks
while many of his neighbors still live inside mud
houses. The tanker was is built to temporarily hold
200mt of water per second from the boreholes nearby,
and an additional four boreholes dug two kilometers
from the tanker.
For many women in this rural village, such as Saada
Hassen, 25, the mother of a six-year old daughter,
who supports herself by running a tiny vending shop,
the boreholes are a godsend. Now able to fill a
bouquet of yellow plastic containers - a popular
sight across rural Ethiopia - for 50 cents from a
pipe a few meters from her shop means she is
relieved. Her neighbor, Razia Ibrahim, a mother of
eight, still remembers the days when women from this
village travelled to a nearby river, Halahulal
Shine, to fetch water, getting up as early as
5:00am.
For five months now the Chinese-built water network
system, whose electromechanical part was installed
by Indian experts, has brought drinking water not
only for the village. Farmers such as the Abdure
brothers - Mohammed and Muktar - use water from the
boreholes for watering their land growing sorghum.
For an area that receives annual rainfall of not
more than 200 cubic meters, a daily flow of water
through his farm land is extraordinary.
Surprisingly, there is not little indication that
the area exposes the size and extent of the project;
nor do the couple of small shelters made of blocks
scattered across this arid lowland plain tell how
lifesaving they are to the people of Harer, and five
small towns along the way.
One of Ethiopia’s historical cities, and the first
to get piped water even ahead of Addis Abeba, 100
years ago, has seen its resident population of
108,188, according to the recent census, suffer from
water deprivation for many years, but more acutely
for the past eight years. In February 2004, Lake
Alemaya, where the city developed a water supply
system in 1966, dried up owing to declining levels
of rain in the area and excessive irrigation. Even
today, where the dried land serves as grazing land
instead, the trace of the lake is evident looking at
the remarkably green field where it still holds
water whenever the season gets kind.
However, the prospect of inability to provide water
to the town’s residents has been worrying
authorities both at the central government and local
level since the mid 1980s. For over a decade,
experts were on the lookout, searching for suitable
locations endowed with underground water. Initially,
locations at Maya Gudo and Errer River were
identified for their potential for underground
water.
A revised study financed by the African Development
Bank (AfDB), in 1995, where a suggestion was made to
build a dam on these rivers at an estimated cost of
830 million Br, was nixed due to feelings of high
cost at the time. It took another five years for
experts hired by the federal government to identify
a rich well-field far from the town of Harer, and
near Hurso, crossing two jurisdictional regions.
Ethiopia’s real potential for underground water is a
matter that remains within the study rooms. No one
seems to know for certain how much there is
underneath the surface, with only 36.8pc of the
country landmass being mapped, according to the
Ministry of Water & energy.
Although the country's groundwater is the main
source for domestic water supply and sanitation,
with potential for irrigation and industrial needs,
it is the least known in terms of volume, location
and quality, according to Asfaw Dingamo, former
minister of Water Resources, in his paper presented
to the International Geological Congress held in
Oslo, Norway, in 2008.
Experts, however, believe Ethiopia is not
particularly impressive in its potential for ground
water, which is estimated to be 3.2 billion cubic
meters. Nonetheless, recent studies yet to be
finalized increase this estimate to 13.2 billion
cubic meters under 12 identified basins and covering
1.13 million square kilometers.
The largest of these basins is the Abay River Basin,
which is believed to have 1.87 billion cubic meter
of water covering 199,812sqkm; followed by Omo
Gibe, with its 0.42 million cubic meters covering
79,000sqkm. The river basin where the small village
of Hasseliso is located is included in the Awash
River Basin, which is believed to have 0.14 million
cubic meters water covering 112,696sqkm area.
“This area has a reserve of water meant to supply
for 10 years,” said Ahmed Mohammed, coordinator for
Harer Water Supply & Sanitation Project, walking
around the tanker in Hasseliso, a few weeks after
the water system begun pumping water to Harer, 72km
from the source.
For the local authorities fighting to secure water
to the residents of Harer, such as Arif Mohammed,
general manager of Harer Water Supply Authority, it
has been a watershed in the long and arduous
struggle began in the year 2000, when the federal
government had asked AfDB for loans to finance the
project. Two years later, the board of directors of
the Bank approved the request for loans and grants
amounting to 227 million Br, and an agreement was
signed in November 2002.
The Hareri Regional Government chipped in 66 million
Br and the federal government put in an additional
60 million along the way. The project was a
collaboration of the federal government, the
regional states of Oromia and Hareri as well as the
Dire Dawa Administrative Council. A steering
committee chaired by the minister of Water & Energy,
but also comprised of the heads of each
administrative region oversaw the construction
process.
Saada Hassen has a community water pipe a few metres
from her house.
Juggling the federal politics, with each region
attempting to assert its right over the source of
the water’ and the four towns where the 600m wide
pipe imported from India passes through demanding
their fair share, has left its mark on the delay of
the project of almost a decade now.
Passing through the towns of Alemaya, Aweday, Adele,
and Dengego as well as the Alemaya University, the
pipeline was built by the Chinese CGC, and climbs
1,000m above sea level to reach the Denegego
reservoir containing 2,000 cubic meters of water,
before it heads down hill to the largest reservoir
in Harer with the capacity to contain double the
amount of Dengego. This water engineering, designed
by Water Works Design Enterprise, in partnership
with the French BCEOM, requires transmission of 47km
employing pumps and the remaining with gravity.
In between, two reservoirs with the capacity of 500
cubic meters each are built, comprising valves,
generators, compressors and pumps, all installed and
operated before commissioning by the Indian firm,
TechnoFab Engineering Ltd.
Two weeks ago, experts from the Indian firm were
installing the automated system which monitors and
regulates the water storage in each reservoir in
order to relay the data to a remote computer inside
Arif’s office. They have yet to be launched, but
almost all the panels have been installed, though
hardly any of them are functioning to date.
This did not stop water from reaching households in
the town of Harer two weeks ago. Even the first
pipelines Ahmed Mohammed (Bomba), an Indian
businessman, had installed in 1892 have began to
function despite their being dried up for over a
decade.
One such household inside the town’s historical
Jegol was Niema Ibrahim’s, an 80-year old mother
with a family of five, whose son was on a visit from
Addis Abeba.
“Unlike last year when all of us had been
disappointed with a promise not delivered, this time
there is indeed water,” he said, opening the water
pipe few meters from the front door, to demonstrate
it with a sense of relief.
At the far corner of the compound, where there is a
small room and washroom for the quarters, were
jerry-canes piled up one after the other. They are
reminders of the dry days, when members of the
family used to send for refills from a nearby
community water depot each fill-up costing as much
as five Birr, as opposed to now where they pay a
monthly bill of few hundred.
“It is ironic that the room was originally built for
a shower,” said Niema’s son. “It ended up being a
storeroom for the jerry-canes.”
His mother’s residence is located on one of the
three zones in the town provided with daily water.
“I used to get water once every two weeks,” a lady
whose identity she declined to disclose as she stood
by her compound gate told Fortune. This has changed
now; for the past couple of months, I get water five
days a week.”
Interruptions within these days are now unusual,
according to Arif.
“If there is one for a day, people call me on my
mobile phone,” Arif told Fortune.
Residents in Harer have a total demand of 7,000
cubic meter water a day. When the project gets
commissioned during the scheduled date on December
30, 2011, the town’s water supply authority will
have a capacity to provide 10,000 cubic meters.
But not all have water anytime soon after the
commissioning of the project.
At least one zone where the family of 18-year old
Bethlehem Girma lives, and paradoxically located
near the largest reservoir, has yet to get a network
of pipelines. Struggling to make her way through
lines of women carrying jerry-canes one morning, and
unlike Saada, where the community’s water pipe is a
few meters from her shop, Bethlehem and her family
are bound to continue receiving water from one of
the five temporary depots installed across the town,
for which trucks transport water from a nearby well. |
