Monrovia waterworks to resume pumping on Thursday

Monrovia's main water treatment plant should resume piped water supplies to western suburbs of the capital on Thursday, the European Union official responsible for its rehabilitation said on Monday. Jean Chahine, who is better known to most people in Monrovia by his ham radio call sign "2JJ," said engineers at the White Plains waterworks were already testing the pumps that supply the pipeline to Bushrod Island, where according to government estimates more than 300,000 people live. "By Thursday we should be able to give Bushrod Island water again," Chahine told IRIN in an interview. "The 16 inch diameter line will be able to supply all the way from Hotel Africa to Water Street (in central Monrovia)." Most of Monrovia has not enjoyed the luxury of piped drinking water since 1992. Relief agencies say providing safe drink water to the estimated 1.5 million population of this war-torn city is one of their top priorities. Chahine made a plea for Nigerian peacekeeping troops to provide security for the White Plains water treatment plant, which has been out of action for the past two and a half months as a result of rebel attacks on the capital. "Our major problem is security," he said, noting that government forces had chased away the waterworks staff in mid-July and had looted fuel from the facility. Chahine said that although heavy fighting took place nearby, the waterworks itself had not received any serious hits. However, a leaking water pipe had flooded its engine house, damaging several pumps and generators, because there were no staff on hand to deal with the situation. White Plains lies outside the Nigerian peacekeepers' present security perimeter. Chahine complained that the force commander had said he did not have sufficient men available to post a permanent guard on the waterworks. "As far as they are concerned, White Plains is not in their plans," he said. However, Ross Mountain, the UN Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Liberia, said on Sunday that it was vital for the peacekeepers to protect "crucial humanitarian facilities" such as the waterworks. "If there is not adequate security at White Plains, all that (rehabilitation) work will come to nought," he told a press conference. Chahine said that with the reactivation of White Plains, Bushrod Island, the only area of Monrovia to have enjoyed piped water in recent years, would once more have water flowing through its taps during daylight hours. A filling station for tanker trucks at the Bong Mines bridge on Bushrod Island would also be reopened, he said. However, Chahine said water distribution to other parts of Monrovia would continue to depend for the time being on some 500 public wells - chlorinated daily by the EU - and tanker trucks. These distribute water from deep boreholes in the eastern suburb of Paynesville and John F Kennedy Hospital in nearby Sinkor. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) , which operates the hospital, is currently distributing water by truck from there. Chahine said the EU would help the Liberian Water and Sanitation Corporation to reactivate a second borehole in Paynesville over the next few days to relieve pressure on the existing pumping station, where long queues of relief agency and commercial tankers have been forming. He said the first borehole in Paynesville had received "de facto protection" since it supplied the home of former president Charles Taylor and it had never stopped working. However, water company employees removed the pumps and generator from the second well, about 500 metres away, after attempts were made to steal the equipment. "Before next week, we will have reactivated borehole number two," Chahine said. Earlier this year, Taiwan donated new diesel-driven pumps to reactivate the main water pipeline between White Plains and Paynesville, which once supplied all the eastern suburbs and most of central Monrovia. However, Chahine said these were submerged under water when the waterworks engine house was flooded last month and would require repair. He said the EU was negotiating a mandate to take over this task so that piped water could be supplied to stand pipes and holding tanks in the city centre in the near future. John Kpakolo, a water company engineer, said the supply of piped water to individual premises in central Monrovia would take much longer to restore, since virtually the entire network of local distribution pipes in the city would have to be replaced after lying disused and rusting for the past 11 years. The renovation of the local distribution network on Bushrod Island had just been completed before the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement launched its first attack on Monrovia on June 6, he noted.