There it is again, the time of “hoping” for a good winter with abundant rainfall Jordan is depending on to replenish its diminishing water resources. But instead, experts say, they should grasp the bull by the horns and implement proposals to reform water demand structures, long called for by water scientists and economists. Even the forward thrusting Economic Consultative Council, set up by King Abdullah last year to speed up socio-economic, administrative and educational reforms, appears to have gotten cold feet about its “revolutionary report” that never made it to the King's desk.
The report, prepared by the ECC's agriculture committee, provides an assessment of the irrigated agriculture sector, the country's largest water consumer, and suggests proposals on how to transform it into a less water squandering and more economically feasible entity. Among the most favored suggestions the report proposes are the reduction of irrigated area in the highlands from 300,000 dunums down to 130,000 dunums in five years, ending subsidies for water used in agriculture and privatizing the water management in the Jordan Valley.
Other ideas include the taking in of multinational investors — banking on the idea that the private sector will manage their agricultural production in both an economically feasible as well as water conserving way — and rigorously ceasing the overexploitation of aquifers — all controversial measures feared to stir up both social and political unrest.
Although water supply to agriculture is rationed during the summer, the sector still accounts for 70 percent of the country's annual water consumption, but contributes only 4.5 percent to the GDP. During 2000, agriculture received around 40 percent less water. Not only agriculture, but also household water supplies are completely dependent on heaven's generosity.
“Our emergency plan will depend on the amount of rainfall. We still have a long period ahead¯ [we] can still get better. We hope that this winter will bring lots of water,” said Adan Zoubi, assistant to the secretary general at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.
To cope with the threatening water scarcity each summer, a rigorous water-rationing schedule is put in place, according to which households are supplied with water once to twice a week only. With an annual water deficit of 220mcm, that is going to increase to 250mcm by 2010 due to population growth and an expanding industrial sector, Jordan is in dire need of additional water resources.
According to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, a bundle of projects is under way to supply additional water resources in the near future that are hoped to become operational just in time to counter the next routine water shortage during summer 2001. It is hoped that the following projects will make an additional 125mcm available. The total costs for these projects are estimated to amount at least to $300 million.
The so-called “Hisban-Zara-Main project,” a merger of the Hisban and Zara-Main project, will supply around 40mcm of marginal water from Wadi Zarqa, Main and Zara springs, for desalination in a plant to be set up at the northern end of the Dead Sea. This water will supply Amman and the hotels of the Dead Sea area and is estimated to cost around $90 million, of which the US Agency for International Development is expected to pay $70 million. The remainder is going to be paid by the government.
The Lajoun project is designed to supply 20mcm of water to Amman and Karak from five additional wells — the estimated costs are JD10 million. The “corridor” project will supply around 10mcm from the Hallabat well field to Amman and Zarqa, and will cost around JD7.5 million. Additionally, the government is upgrading old wells to supply the water network with an additional 21mcm. Aqaba will receive an additional 4mcm by drawing water from Wadi Al-Yitim.
The Mujib Dam project, is a mega JD180 million program to construct dams in the Mujib, Waleh and Hasa valleys, a diversion dam at the conjunction of Mujib and Waleh, and the exploitation of floodwaters flowing to the targeted valleys. When completed, the project is expected to provide around 55mcm annually. The great part of the costs will be covered by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the remainder by the Jordanian government and the Islamic Fund for Development.
Other than the short/medium term projects mentioned, there are two major projects aiming at supplying Jordan with water in the long run, estimated to cost around $855 million and which are going to supply Jordan with an additional 185mcm of water.
The estimated JD146 million Wihdeh Dam project on the Yarmouk River, a joint Jordanian-Syrian project, will supply an additional 85mcm to the governorates of Amman and Irbid, as well as generate power for Syria. Authorities say the plan, expected to start in 2001, is part of a long-term government strategy which will enable it to store additional water from the Yarmouk, which normally provides the country with 135mcm annually.
But experts claim that the project is not feasible as the Yarmouk River reached its lowest level in decades because of the worst drought in the region in 50 years and due to around 25 ditches dug inside Syria to store the river's water. According to one water expert, Jordan received 8mcm from Syria in 1999, but in 2000 the Kingdom only got 3mcm from its northern neighbor.
The question the experts ask is “Where will all this promised extra water come from?” The long term project that has perhaps received the most publicity is the Disi conveyor. Pegged as a “strategic” project, the Disi proposal aims at supplying Amman with an additional 100mcm annually from the 300,000-year-old Disi aquifer under a $650 million project by the year 2005.
While Libya has not defined the scheme under which it offered to assist Jordan in this project, Iran recently offered to barter Jordanian phosphate and potash against its technical assistance. A scheme according to which Jordan would import water from Turkey had been scraped as not feasible.
With the country ever growing parched, one situation which raises the ire of water conservationists and which was courageously included in the ECC's irrigated agriculture committee's report, according to informed sources, is the desperate need to halt the overexploitation of aquifers.
The safe, or renewable yield from groundwater is around 275mcm annually, but more than 475mcm are being extracted — partly by around 800 illegally dug wells — lowering the water table and threatening to salinize groundwater. Asked about what the government has been doing in 2000 to stop this overexploitation, the answer reflects the touchiness of the problem. “We have done nothing,” Hazem Nasser, secretary general of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation told the Jordan Times.
Water experts have long charged that an “influential” few are guilty of this abuse. Several measures under way, such as the transferring of more powers to Water Authority employees to enter well sites or sites they suspect include illegally dug wells and giving validity to their reports to be used as evidence in court, are claimed to be “alibi” measures that “will not make a great change”, a scientist who refused to be named predicted.
To water expert Abdul Nabi Fardos, director of the National Center for Agricultural Research and Technology Transfer, this situation is no joking matter. “If we don't solve this problem right now, we will lose our fresh water resources from aquifers within 10 to 15 years,” he said during an earlier interview. While the average daily water consumption of a Jordanian is relatively low, it is estimated at 65 cubic meters per day.
Scientists agree that it is arithmetic that will offset all efforts undertaken by the government to alleviate the water problem.
Once again, proponents of water conservation point to the importance of public education and information. “They [the government] are doing their best to find new resources, but the demand is so high that they cannot cope. This problem is more important than water shortage,” believes Manar Fayyad, director of the Water and Environment Research and Study Center at the University of Jordan. “There must be awareness and family planning programs,” she added.
Other critics add that most projects in the pipeline aim at finding additional water resources rather than cutting down on consumption.
On the broadest scale, the issue that will affect all the population, some much more painfully than others, is lifting subsidies, both for agriculture and households, something the IMF and World Bank have been long calling for. “The top problem is water subsidy. If people had to pay more for water, they would appreciate it more,” said a water expert who requested anonymity.
“To produce one cubic meter of water in the Zai Water Treatment Plant, the marginal cost is nearly 300 fils per cubic meter. This is the cost for pumping the water from the Jordan Valley to Zai and for the chemicals to make it fit for human consumption. The costs for pumping the water to Amman to the customer are not included in this water price. But still, people pay only 100 fils per cubic meter,” he lamented.
Cecily Mango, director of USAID's Office of Water Resources and Environment, brings in the same argument. “... Another issue is the general cost recovery, water utilities, the government basically subsidizes water and subsidizes a lot of the services connected to the distribution of water. And customers don't pay the true cost of the water,” she told the Jordan Times in a recent interview.
And in a warning tone she added: “Over time, Jordan may not get the level of donor assistance that it is currently getting, and at some point they are going to figure out how to pay for provision of water.”
USAID, in 2000 alone, donated $83 million for programs strengthening key public sector water institutions, increasing water use efficiency and improving the quality of treated wastewater for use in agriculture and industry. Also other major donors target their donations to programs on increasing water efficiency.
The Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), over the past three years, donated $65 million for water projects, mainly the upgrading of the pumping and treatment facility of the Zai Water Treatment Plant from 32mcm to 90mcm until 2001.
The third main donor is the German Bank for Reconstruction, which invests around $22 million yearly, mainly to finance projects aiming at the reduction of water loss and the improvement of wastewater disposal.
A multi-donor $250 million project focuses on upgrading Amman's worn-out water networks that, according to officials, were leaking 55 percent of water pumped to citizens, costing the country around JD15 million a year. “The intent there is to completely restructure the physical network, and it goes hand in hand with the World Bank-financed management contract that the French company LEMA has,” said Mango.
In efforts to improve the management of Amman's water systems, the government in 1999 contracted LEMA, a French company to better manage Amman's water and wastewater. After its taking over of Amman's water management, LEMA could reduce the amount of lost water to 49 per cent at present. The company also introduced a modern complaints call canter reducing the response time drastically.
Another theme high on the agenda during 2000 was tapping into wastewater resources. With the increasing demand for freshwater in cities in tandem with rapidly growing urban sector, it is estimated that by 2020 the effluents of Jordan's municipalities will more than triple to 830,000 cubic meters daily compared to 240,000 cubic meters at present.
Currently, 8.5 percent of the country's total irrigated lands are supplied with treated wastewater blended with higher quality water, consuming 80 percent of all waste water generated in Jordan. The necessity to tap into this resource and an imminent project to upgrade the chronically overloaded Khirbet Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant also seems to have brought about an attitude change. While a year ago, officials denied that wastewater at Khirbet Samra was of low quality and not good for agricultural purposes, now, with help on the way, they indirectly admit that water treated there is not totally fit for agricultural purposes.
“[The purpose is] to establish a new treatment plant by new specifications that the water treated in it, will be reasonable for agriculture,” said Zobi. USAID will finance 50 percent¯that is $75 million of the Khirbet Samra treatment plant, while the remainder is going to be a Build-Operate-Transfer-scheme.
The 14-year old Khirbet Samra was established to treat Amman's wastewaters, but later began to handle the sewage of Zarqa and Ruseifa — a factor that sharply affected the plant's efficiency. Several times, the government had to stop pumping water from the King Talal Dam, which is supplied by Khirbet Samra because of “high levels of salinity and toxic substances”.
Water from the dam is used for irrigation of crops in the central Jordan Valley after it has been mixed with higher quality water from the King Abdullah Canal. Another focal point during 2000 was the effort to encourage private investment to improve water management. The government is looking for the private sector's help to foot a projected $15 billion bill for expanding and managing the country's water infrastructure over the next 15 years.
All these projects are necessary, but experts say only regional cooperation can solve the water shortage in the Middle East in the long run. Legal bickering endangers one of the “fruits” Jordan received from the peace treaty with Israel.
An article in the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel provides for the two sides to search for additional sources of water to make available 50mcm of water for Jordan's needs within one year after the exchange of the instruments of ratification of the peace treaty. The most favored plan to find this additional water was the setting up of a desalination plant.
However, by 1997, none of these plans had materialized. An interim agreement between Jordan and Israel was concluded on May 7, 1997 to provide Jordan with water in the meantime. Under this agreement, Israel was to supply Jordan with 25-30mcm of water annually until a desalination plant would have been set up to supply Jordan with the 50mcm of water provided for in the peace treaty.
The Jordanians say Israel is obliged to supply the water until a desalination plant is set up and functional. But the Israelis say the agreement set a three-year time frame for the water supply to Jordan, and that expired on May 7, 2000. Jordanians say the three-year period was not meant to be a time frame for the agreement, but an estimation of the period of time needed to erect the desalination plant.
Desalination of brackish water in the Jordan Valley is one of the most favored ideas to provide the 50mcm for Jordan. Jordan insists the plant be erected on the Israeli side, but the Israelis appear reluctant to carry both finances for the construction and operation as well as finding water resources on its territory alone.
“We are still checking, we have to check together with Jordan, we have some ideas but [we] have to find additional sources in Jordan and Israel. One of the possibilities is [the desalination of] brackish water, but there are other possibilities,” Israeli Water Commissioner Shimon Tal told the Jordan Times in a telephone interview without elaborating.
Last May, a report in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, according to which Israel had informed Jordan that the agreement was no longer valid, sparked nervousness in Jordan. But according to both Jordanian and Israeli officials, the water supply continued, and rumors about intention of a possible cut of water supply from Israel were dismissed as media hype.
That may not be true anymore. “For now, we plan to supply it [the 25mcm of water], but we have to negotiate about this issue as we have to negotiate about the other one [the source of the additional 50mcm Israel should be supplying to Jordan once a source has been found],” Tal said when asked about whether Jordanians can expect to receive the 25mcm during summer. The water annex of the peace treaty stipulates that Jordan should be supplied with an extra 215 mcm annually.
The division of that amount, according to the annex, is: 105 mcm from the Yarmouk River; 50 mcm from additional sources (the desalination plant); 30 mcm from dams along the Yarmouk River; 20 mcm from Lake Tiberias (stored there from the Yarmouk and given back to Jordan in the summers) and 10 mcm from desalinated water from springs. Of this 215, Jordan is reaping very little, according to Dureid Mahasneh, former head of Jordan's water negotiation team with Israel.
“From the 30 mcm we receive nothing, from the 50 mcm we get only 25mcm, and from the 105mcm receipt is only occasional, never the the whole amount, particularly when there is a drought and the fact that dams along the Yarmouk's north deplete some of the water that should be allocated to Jordan,” Mahasneh said. — ( Jordan Times )
By Dana Charkasi
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
