US embassy cable - 03KUWAIT1360

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 001360 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO PASS USAID/W 
STATE PLEASE REPEAT TO IO COLLECTIVE 
STATE FOR PRM/ANE, EUR/SE, NEA/NGA, IO AND SA/PAB 
NSC FOR EABRAMS, SMCCORMICK, STAHIR-KHELI, JDWORKEN 
USAID FOR USAID/A, DCHA/AA, DCHA/RMT, DCHA/FFP 
USAID FOR DCHA/OTI, DCHA/DG, ANE/AA 
USAID FOR DCHA/OFDA:WGARVELINK, BMCCONNELL, KFARNSWORTH 
USAID FOR ANE/AA:WCHAMBERLIN 
ROME FOR FODAG 
GENEVA FOR RMA AND NKYLOH 
DOHA FOR MSHIRLEY 
ANKARA FOR AMB WRPEARSON, ECON AJSIROTIC AND DART 
AMMAN FOR USAID AND DART 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID, PREF, IZ, WFP 
SUBJECT:  TFIZ01: DART UMM QASR WATER UPDATE 9 APRIL 2003 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1.  On 8 April, the DART attended the Water/Sanitation 
Sectoral Meeting, held at the UNDP Office in Kuwait City. 
The DART also met with civil affairs representative and 
UNICEF to discuss the water supply situation in Umm Qasr. 
The following report is based on these meetings.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
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UNICEF'S WATER STRATGEY 
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2.  The United Nations Children's Fund's (UNICEF) strategy 
for improving the water supply services in Umm Qasr does not 
involve the direct use of the Coalition-built pipeline from 
Kuwait.  This pipeline has the capacity of delivering up to 
2,000,000 liters per day of potable water provided by the 
Government of Kuwait (GOK).  At the pipeline terminus, the 
water is supplied to tankers, 22 of which have been hired by 
Coalition forces, for delivery within Umm Qasr and 
surrounding areas.  The agreement with the GOK for the 
supply of water expires at the end of May, and reportedly is 
unlikely to be renewed. 
 
3.  The UNICEF plan involves several objectives.  The first 
is to provide potable water to Umm Qasr by tankering water a 
distance of eight kilometers (km) from Kuwait to Umm Qasr. 
UNICEF has hired four tankers of 38,000-liters capacity each 
to bring the water to the Umm Qasr hospital and four other 
locations in the town.  The hospital will have a 10,000- 
liter bladder, while the other four locations will each have 
a 20,000-liter bladder.  Tap stands will be erected at the 
bladders to allow people to draw water for their personal 
needs.  The water will be free.  It is expected that the 
tankers will supply approximately 400,000 liters per day. 
Additional bladders and tap stands will be installed if the 
situation requires them. 
 
4.  The second objective (and first priority) of the UNICEF 
plan is to restore the pre-war municipal piped water system. 
This system consisted of a 75 km pipeline from Basrah to Umm 
Qasr that supplied 2,000,000 liters of water per day to a 
treatment plant, from which it was distributed through the 
reticulation system to houses within the town.  The water 
supplied by this system, although bacteriologically safe, 
was non-potable because of high salinity.  As such, the 
water was used in Umm Qasr for uses other than drinking. 
Potable water was provided by two commercial factories 
through private vendors.  The water treatment plant and the 
two commercial factories were damaged by the war and the 
subsequent looting that took place.  The overall restoration 
of this piped system will require assessment and repair of 
the pipeline from Basrah, repair of the treatment plant, and 
repair of the piped reticulation system.  One constraint is 
that the pipeline passes through currently non-permissive 
areas, which means that neither UNICEF nor its non- 
governmental organization (NGO) partners are allowed to 
carry out the needed assessment at this time. 
 
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DART LIAISON BETWEEN UNICEF AND CIVIL MILITARY 
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5.  At the Water/Sanitation Sectoral Meeting, held at the 
United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) office in Kuwait 
City on 8 April, a representative of USAID's Reconstruction 
Team reported that USAID was willing to rebuild the 
treatment plant and install desalinization equipment to make 
the water potable.  UNICEF, which is currently prohibited 
from working directly with agencies of the U.S. Government, 
indicated that it would be delighted to see such an activity 
take place.  At the close of the meeting, a DART 
representative inquired whether UNICEF had any objections to 
a U.S. Civil Affairs unit carrying out the necessary 
technical assessment of the 75 km pipeline from Basrah and 
then making the results available to UNICEF.  Again, UNICEF 
replied that it would be pleased to receive such 
information. 
 
6.  Also on 8 April, the DART met with Civil Affairs 
representatives to discuss the assessment of the pipeline 
with the civil affairs authorities.  The DART will make an 
official request so that the official process for 
authorization can start.  If no difficulties are 
encountered, the assessment could begin within a couple of 
days.  The DART pointed out to the Civil Affairs officers 
that UNICEF cannot deal directly with the U.S. military and, 
therefore, the DART would act as a liaison between UNICEF 
and the military. 
 
JONES