Gaza Water Crisis Worsening
By Asya Abdul Hadi
From the PALESTINE REPORT, MAY 16 1997, VOL 2 NO
49
Gaza City -- More and more Gazans are spending part of
their limited grocery budget on imported bottled water, seeking to
avoid health problems caused by the polluted tap water in the Strip.
Public health specialists are warning of a fresh water deficit in the
Gaza Strip by the year 2000 if water resources continue to be managed
as they are now.
Muhammed Abu Aassi, a grocer from Gaza City, said sales of bottled
water have increased 20 percent over the past two years. Aassi sells
48 bottles of water a day, to people like Abdul-Nasser Rafati, 37, of
Gaza, who suffers from kidney disease. He spends US$4 a day for 3-4
bottles of water.
"Our tap water is polluted with gravel and sand," said Rafati who
runs an electrical tools shop. "I cannot afford $2000 for a surgical
procedure to dissolve kidney stones so I buy water."
Environmentalists are concerned about the effects of the growing
freshwater deficit and the declining water quality on public health
in the Gaza Strip. Dr. Yousif Abu-Safiy'eh, a Palestinian legislat or
and head of the LC committee on natural resources and energy, said
the water pollution is caused by the high salinity of the
groundwater, high nitrate concentrations and other environmental
factors.
"Insufficient sanitation conditions and the absence of sewage
conveyance systems pose serious threats to public health and are the
major cause of environmental degradation," said Abu Safiy'eh. He
explained that the nitrate concentrations in water causes
methaemoglobinaemia, known as "blue baby" syndrome, and gastric
cancer. It also reduces vitamin C intake among infants. In 1993, an
UNRWA study also found that the nitrate concentrations also cause
miscarriages.
In fact, the average concentration of nitrates in the tap water in
the Gaza Governorate breaches the World Health Organization (WHO)
standards, which is 10 mg/1 L, the Palestinian Water Authority found
last year. The WHO also indicated that kidney diseases are linked to
the increase of fluorides in water.
Groundwater, which depends on rainfall, is the major water
resource in the Gaza Strip. The average annual rainfall varies from
200 mm to 400 mm, said Abu-Safiy'eh. But he added that the quantity
of f resh water available to Gazans has been dramatically reduced due
to two factors: first, population growth, and second, because the
sand which used to constitute the catchment area for the rainfall
which replenished the aquifer has been paved over in much of the
Strip.
The quantity of the rainfall recharge has been reduced to 40
million cubic meters today from 90 million in the 1970s and is
decreasing continuously, largely due to Israeli wells dug all around
the Ga za Strip, Abu-Safiy'eh explained. "These wells have blocked
about 30 million mm from the Gaza Strip since the 1980s," he
said.
According to the Palestinian Water Authority, the current fresh
water deficit in Gaza City is expected to increase dramatically by
the year 2000. Extensive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides
in agriculture is causing contamination of groundwater with chemicals
such as nitrates and sulfates, Abu Safiy'eh said.
The PWA says the groundwater used by Gazans is supplied from more
than 3,700 wells. Of these, only 1,732 are registered. Only two areas
of good fresh water comply with WHO standards (of nitrates less than
50 p.p.m. and chloride less than 250 p.p.m.), according to a report
by the Water Division of the Ministry of Agriculture in 1995. The PWA
has signed a contract with the French and Palestinian company of
Lyonnaise Des Eaux/Khatib & Alami to improve the water quality
and quantity in the Gaza Strip through water recycling and other
technical assistance.
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