From CENTCOM:Clean, potable drinking water soon will be available to more than 200 families living in small communities from Al Basheer to Immam Akare in Wassit Province, just southeast of Baghdad. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) built a water pipe system to bring water to families that have never had running water in their villages, much less in their homes. The water network project cost $172,000 and was finished this past October.Remember, this is not happening. This is not true. Your government is lying to you. Nothing good is happening in Iraq. We return now to regularly scheduled programming.
The second step toward improving water for these village residents is a water treatment facility, currently under construction, to provide clean, potable water to villagers for the first time in their lives. The water treatment project includes electric-power generators, pumps, and water filter treatment and water storage units. This water system will draw water out of a nearby dirt canal fed by the Tigris River, treat and filter the water, and pump it through the water pipes that now connect to homes. The treatment facility is expected to be complete by the end of March and will cost $250,000.
The water network pipeline is seven kilometers long, serves more than 200 homes and is a base on which to build a larger water network to bring clean, safe drinking water to many more families in this rural, farming area. Families in Al Basheer region live in traditional mud brick houses with thatched, reed, mud roofs and make their living by raising rice, vegetables and dates. The water pipeline network and water treatment unit bring a higher quality of life to residents of Wassit Province, but more importantly, clean water will bring a healthier lifestyle and reduce the spread of waterborne diseases, one of the major health problems throughout Iraq.
Reconstruction projects, like these at Al Basheer, are providing jobs to local Iraqi people, working for Iraqi-owned companies, under contract to USACE and using Iraq Relief and Reconstruction funds.
Wassit Province has five similar water treatment projects for a total investment of $2 million. Wassit Province also has 72 school construction or renovation projects worth nearly $4 million, electricity substations and distribution systems investing $29 million, health care facilities for $5 million and other security construction projects for $116 million. These projects are designed to build a foundation, which will enable and sustain the Iraqi people to create healthy, safe lives for themselves and their families.
Insta-Update
More from CENTCOM:Within a community, the activities occurring in two specialized types of buildings hold great sway and influence for the residents of the community - they are schools and religious structures. Because of the influence a school can have on the current and future society, it is important to the reconstruction of Iraq to provide sound lasting facilities that will positively influence the future of this country for years to come.You leaders are incompetent and stupid. There is no plan. QUAGMIRE!
The Kovak Primary School in the Dahuk District is one of those buildings. This 12-classroom school was newly constructed from the ground up. A year in the making, it is now complete and ready to house 36 teachers and about 825 students.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had contract over watch of this project.
“The Dohuk Resident Office has managed several different types of projects throughout Northern Iraq, but the school construction and renovations are special... they make you smile. I’ve never seen children so excited to go to school,” said Derek Walker, project engineer.
“You can see the future of not just the country, but perhaps the world, in the happiness of the faces of these children who long to enter them. I can honestly say I know we’ve made a difference in their lives,” he said.
Walker is no stranger to these efforts, he has aided in the renovation or construction of 30 schools, in Iraq. He is on his second deployment in two years.
In his normal, humble manner, Walker credited others for this success.
“I refuse to take credit for this completion as it has been a team effort, as all of our projects are. Without the support, oversight and coordination of our local Iraqi architect, and our quality control engineer, Tommie Lemons, the local government, and so many others, the experience would have been terribly difficult,” he said.
Now that the school construction is complete, it is expected students will arrive and attend class in September 2006.
Many schools in Iraq hold classes in two shifts each day. As the class sizes grow to meet the school’s capacity, this will surely be the case at this school.
Yet ANOTHER Update
Even MORE from CENTCOM:Despite insurgent activity, Iraqi workers completed repairs to two water treatment plants in south Baghdad after nearly four months of work. Due to their skill and bravery, an estimated one million Baghdad residents will benefit from the renovations that continued regardless of insurgent attacks.&*(%%%^( *(_&&*$^#$&^&(*)*(_%%$(()(_*&*%^ Bu$Hitler HALLIBURTON!
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Gulf Region Central (GRC) provided oversight for the restoration project. Local workers cleaned the large, 34-meter sedimentation basins, repaired pumps and generators, and installed new chlorine pumps. Because of these combined efforts, each treatment plant now produces about 2,000 cubic meters of clean, potable water per hour.
“Mahmoudiya and Latifiya residents in south Baghdad this week had water flowing from their faucets for the first time in nearly eight years,” said Alfred Everett, GRC Resident Engineer supporting the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. “That’s what people in those communities are telling us.”
A Baghdad firm was awarded the project to rehabilitate two water treatment plants servicing the areas northwest of Latifiya along the Euphrates River.
“Despite setbacks and damage to the generators and other equipment in both facilities, the contractor successfully finished the job,” said Everett.
“There’s no question that Iraqis working on these projects demonstrated significant courage every day.”
It is almost as if this guy were in charge of our media...
