The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has provided a five year, $14.48 million grant to IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and its partners in four countries - including Burkina Faso and Ghana. The grant will be used to discover the real, disaggregated costs of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in rural areas and regions undergoing urbanization. It will also identify the range of physical, social, economic and political factors that influence those costs.

The project, "WASHCost: Quantifying the cost of delivering safe water, sanitation and hygiene services," will embed responsibility for developing and using unit cost data at local and national levels, increasing the relevance and impact of the data. Partners in the project include national and local governments, community-based organizations, the local private sector, non-governmental organizations and international agencies. Data developed by the WASHCost project will help these partners and others predict what WASH services should cost in different contexts , thereby supporting better governance and technology choices and more efficient use of funds in a sector that is often constrained by inadequate and confused information.

The grant was made from the Global Development Program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which works with motivated partners to create opportunities for people to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger. IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre is a not-for-profit organization that develops and shares knowledge with water sector partners around the world and assists national and international aid organizations and donors to develop sustainable WASH policies and strategies.

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Gates Foundation Supports Study on Real Costs of Water and Sanitation Projects

The California Department of Public Health and the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board signed off last week on the start-up of a purification system that will turn highly treated sewage into tap water. The Groundwater Replenishment System, which has been under construction for nearly four years, was developed by the Orange County water and sanitation districts when were faced with a water shortage.

The $490 million Groundwater Replenishment System will eventually provide up to 70 million gallons of water per day. Initially, the project will inject some 35 million gallons a day into an expanded seawater barrier to prevent ocean water from contaminating the groundwater supply. After an additional approval by the state Department of Public Health, another 35 million gallons will be pumped to the water district's spreading basins in Anaheim, where it will mix with Santa Ana River water and other imported sources and percolate into the groundwater basin to be drawn on for tap water.

The project - described as the world's largest advanced water purification project of its kind, and one of the state's most significant - takes highly treated wastewater and puts it through a three-step purification process that includes micro-filtration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light with hydrogen peroxide.

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System Approved to Turn Wastewater into Drinking Water in California

A new report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates $202.5 billion is the nationwide capital investment needed to control wastewater pollution for up to a 20-year period. The 2004 Clean Watersheds Needs Survey, the 14th national survey of this type conducted by the agency, summarizes the needs of publicly owned wastewater treatment works.

The 2004 estimate includes $134.4 billion for wastewater treatment and collection systems, $54.8 billion for combined sewer overflow corrections and $9.0 billion for storm water management. The needs in this survey represent a $16.1 billion increase over the 2000 report and are due to a combination of population growth, aging infrastructure, facility improvements to meet more protective water quality standards, and in some cases, providing additional treatment capacity for handling wet-weather flows.

Over three-fourths of the total needs reported in the survey are concentrated in 18 states with New York and California having the most wastewater treatment work needs totaling more than $20 billion. Florida, Illinois and Ohio each have needs in excess of $10 billion. The EPA is working with states, tribes, utilities, and other partners to reduce the demand on infrastructure through improved asset management, improved technology, water efficiency and watershed-based decision making.

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U.S Needs $202.5 Billion for Clean Water Infrastructure

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported on a Vermont community that expressed health concerns believed to be associated with exposure to tap water treated with chloramine.

On April 10, 2006 Vermont's Champlain Water Distinct (CWD) changed its drinking water treatment process to use chloramine rather than free chlorine as the secondary disinfectant. From April 2006 through May 2007, the Vermont Department of Health Agency of Human Services and the Champlain Water District received approximately 74 calls from community members reporting a wide range of health symptoms including upper respiratory symptoms, complaints of watery eyes and nose, scratchy throat, gastrointestinal ailments, skin rashes and "itchy skin." A team from the CDC and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was sent to the community to interview affected individuals and tour the water treatment plant.

In its fieldwork, investigators learned that the local chapter of People Concerned About Chloramine (PCAC) had started a campaign prior to April 2006 to protest the change to use chloramine as a disinfectant. Prior to the CDC's and EPA's arrival in September 2007, PCAC implemented a mass media campaign including distribution of approximately 10,000 flyers by going door to door and approaching individuals "on the street" and in grocery stores. Field investigators also observed PCAC members coaching survey respondents.

As a result of the strong biases with the data collected, it was difficult for the CDC to determine if the symptoms the community complained about were related to exposure from chloramine-treated tap water. The report recommends that CDC and EPA should work with State and local agencies to develop the next steps in addressing the issue of community concerns about chloramine-treated tap water.

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CDC Assessment of Chloramine Health Concerns Hampered by Activist Campaign

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