The News Review:

- Innovations to Watch For
- Zimbabwe: Zinwa Pledges Fair Distribution of Water
- ‘Contaminated’ water supply safe
- TIMERGARA: Outages, low voltage affect water supply

Innovations to Watch For
Wall Street Journal – Wall Street Journal (subscription) – Sep 24, 2007
Water pervades all sectors of society and is critical for short-term survival and human health as well as long-term economic development and environmental sustainability. Environmental problems, especially human-induced climate change, add to these pressures. Since water is a critical resource that is essential for sustaining life, the provision, supply and management of water resources are key issues in any nation’s priorities. Particularly so as developing countries are especially vulnerable to the problems linked to climate change, such as floods, famines and droughts. In the modern world today, it is estimated that more than a billion people do not have access to adequate supplies of safe drinking water and nearly two billion people do not have adequate sanitation. In this respect, the poor pay disproportionately for water and suffer the greatest impact both from impaired health and from lost economic opportunities. For example, contaminated water causes millions of preventable deaths every year, especially among children, the elderly and the sick.

Zimbabwe: Zinwa Pledges Fair Distribution of Water
AllAfrica.com – Sep 24, 2007
"Zinwa appeals to residents to use the available water sparingly not in Harare alone, but nationwide. "The eastern and north-eastern suburbs have been always hardest hit when there is a shortage of treated water. Supplies for these areas have to be pumped from Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant to Warren Control, then from Warren to the giant Letombo Reservoir and then pumped again to the local reservoirs. For the northern suburbs, the route is Morton Jaffray to Warren, Warren to Alexandra Park, the reservoir complex on top of Hartman Hill in the Botanic Gardens, and then to the local reservoir. The suburbs in the west, south-west, centre and south of the city draw supplies first from Warren Control and when the demand for treated water exceeds supply there is nothing left to pump to Letombo and Alexandra Park. Relevant Links Southern AfricaSustainable DevelopmentWater and SanitationZimbabwe Management requires cuts to those suburbs fed directly from Warren Control so there is adequate water to pump east and north.

‘Contaminated’ water supply safe
BBC News – Sep 24, 2007
More than 700 homes were without water while engineers investigated a possible contamination of supplies. People have been advised to initially run kitchen taps for five minutes and hot water taps for 30 minutes. Local health protection representatives gave the water supply a clean bill of health on Monday afternoon. Thames Water’s director of water services, John Halsall, said: "We would like to thank our customers in Pamber Heath for their patience and cooperation…
More than 700 homes were without water while engineers investigated a possible contamination of supplies. People have been advised to initially run kitchen taps for five minutes and hot water taps for 30 minutes. Local health protection representatives gave the water supply a clean bill of health on Monday afternoon. Thames Water’s director of water services, John Halsall, said: "We would like to thank our customers in Pamber Heath for their patience and cooperation. "We fully appreciate the inconvenience the restrictions in the use of water have caused and we would like to assure our customers that the mains water is now back to its usual high quality. "Our investigations are continuing to establish the cause of this low-level contamination but customers can be assured that any traces of the petrochemical contaminate have now been completely eradicated from the water mains pipework. " Thames Water said tens of thousands of litres of bottled water was distributed free of cost to the 764 affected homes over the weekend.

TIMERGARA: Outages, low voltage affect water supply
Pakistan Dawn – Sep 24, 2007
Residents of the Talash valley have complained that water supply schemes Bangai Soghalay, Dherai and Amlookdara had been out of order for one month. Similarly, people of Adenzai tehsil have said that tube wells in Shah Alum Baba, Mina Bhattan and Muhajir camp Chakdara are not supplying water to the tehsil. The operators of these schemes said that due to low power voltage tube wells were not run. People of these areas have urged the provincial and district governments to solve the problem of shortage of drinking water. An operator told Dawn on Sunday that people of Ziarat Talash, Nagri Payeen, Shamshi Khan and Bagh Dushkhel had purchased high-powered generators worth Rs65,000-100,000 to run the water supply schemes in their respective areas…
People of these areas have urged the provincial and district governments to solve the problem of shortage of drinking water. An operator told Dawn on Sunday that people of Ziarat Talash, Nagri Payeen, Shamshi Khan and Bagh Dushkhel had purchased high-powered generators worth Rs65,000-100,000 to run the water supply schemes in their respective areas. An official at the Chakdara grid station said on Sunday that the station was already receiving low voltage from the National Power House Tarbela. We cannot increase voltage, he said, adding that some flour mills falling in the jurisdiction of this grid had also complained of low voltage. An official at the Timergara water supply and sanitation department told Dawn that low voltage and frequent power disruption were the main reason for non-functional of tube wells. He said the department had no extra funds to provide power generation to all of its tube wells.