WATER CRISIS THREATENS HAJJA'S BASIN

By: Nabil al-Najar

Translated by: Saba Staff

Edited into English by: Mahmoud Assamiee

SANA'A, April 08 (Saba)- A number of troubles have appeared in Hajja governorate recently. They belong to the randomly digging of wells and water exhaustion to irrigate qat trees.

Qat irrigation is threatening water sources and competes with civilians for a water drop they drink and use for their home stuff in Hajja districts either in the coastal or the mountainous areas.

Yemen News Agency' Saba' went to Hajja city and visited a number of districts in the governorate to investigate the problems that have become a real threat to the people in the area. Saba met a number of concerned people and locals to be acquainted with risks threatening water resources there.

Hajja city, the center of the governorate where its residents complain of water supplies shortage as they only get access to public water services every 8-10 days especially in the drought season that starts in October.

Water supply shortage is because problems in Shers Valley, city east. This valley is considered the main source to supply the city with water from wells that managed by National Water and Sanitation Authority's branch (NWSA) which is 10- Km from the main tank to the water supply station on the top of the city.

According to the NWSA's Deputy Manager, engineer Khaled Humied , the problems include the water level reduction in the main wells in the region because of the random well digging near the authority well campus by civilians and selling it to water trucks which may reach to more than 200 daily. These water trucks are used to irrigate Qat trees in Kuhlan Afar and Mabein farms here which they suffer drought.

He added that civilians also banned the association to dig new wells in the valley saying that they own it. It's their priority to get the benefits in spite of supplying their regions with water networks.

This conduct does not only hinder the authority's projects but also resulted in a threat to attack the authority engineers by shooting against them and the plant, eventually all the issues are at the prosecution.

A local authority's statistic indicates that the current water level reduction is 30 – 40 percent which resulted in 2000 cubic meters of the production reduction compared to 3000-3400 cubic m before the drought season.

Specialists warn against worsening the problem in the near future during summer season that needs large quantities of water and the far future represented by the enlargement of the city and the increase of the population. This needs a permanent and rooted treatment as the Shares valley water is on the surface and depends on rain to be fed.

Yahya al-Thulaia, the technical manager of the National Water and Sanitation Authority, recommends building dams, water barriers and feeding tanks for the surface tanks as of the solutions of the problem. He also recommends educating people about the importance of preserving water as well as spoiling it in irrigating qat trees.

Khalid Humeid stresses that treatments should include other measures as reuse the sanitary water in farming and forbidding digging wells in the authority areas. All concerned authorities should cooperate together to find a solution to water problem.

The governorate leadership has started forming a coordination committee of the concerned authorities to find suitable treatments to preserve the water sources.

In Abes district, particularly in Jerr region, famous for planting mango that consumes big quantities of water in the traditional way of irrigating in the past time, the problem is greater.

Ameen al-Moghales the authority project manager said that the salty soil has started affecting some mango trees, called "coddled" because they need large quantities of water, a light saltiness may destroy them.

Random well diggings appeared last year in Abs district as a result of planting Qat in al-Mahabisha and al-Sharafieen. So they headed towards Abs and al-Rabo' through buying lands and digging wells. Then, they convey water to their Qat farms in their areas by the water trucks in the absence of law and regulation.

Ebraheem Abdullah, a local resident, has mentioned that a big number of random wells have been counted including 12 wells dug in two weeks which affected the drinking water projects. Civilians and the local authority just realized the danger which led to a conflict between them and the Qat farmers that ends in security authority interference.

Adnan Mozahem, the General authority for Rural Water Project's branch manager said ' this can be proved by al-Rebat ,al-Domah project's impact on the west of Abs which witnessed a 20% water level reduction in the last two years. This forced the authority to search for another substitution'.
The eastern areas of Abs region suffer from water scarcity in its geological structure which was proved by the drinking water wells in al-Mahraka and Ozlat al-wasat as well as the western areas water that increase towards the sea.

The random diggings for wells has affected the local authority projects as well, one out of three has come out from the service till they are deepened after its production reduced to 3 liters per second.

It is estimated that the water level reduced to more than 60-70 percent annually in the authority affiliate wells. So it required a constant deepen of the wells to enhance the water sources and digging new ones. The new wells are 120 deep and 14 liters per second as its elementary production' the branch manager said.

Jammal al-Dowah , the authority coordinator of the water resources in Hajja said that there are many things that worsen the problem as buying private diggers by the civilians without permissions that means increasing the random wells.
He also affirmed that the most important treatment of the problem is controlling the diggers as they can not be moved from an area to another.

Regarding this issue, Abduh al-Helmi , a member of Khairan local council said that the random digging of wells threatens the water reserve in these areas as the personal interest overcame the public as some sell water to irrigate Qat trees whereas some hardly find clean water to drink. "When you pass through Hajja districts you get surprised of the large number of the water trucks that pull water along the road. However all the sent massages to the concerned authorities to stop the random digging, we didn't get any respond," He added.

Finally, Hajja water crisis needs coordinating official and public efforts to find solutions. Human life depends on water as it is the essential substance of being alive. So the problem should be solved as fast as possible. The solutions should also include Sana'a and Taiz as their water basins are in a critical situation.