(ST) -The Director of Planning at the Ministry of Water Resources Eng. Joseph Gregg said in an interview for local press that after the low proportion of water supplies from Turkey from the Euphrates River during the month of May estimated at 222 cubic meters per second during the month of June to 328 cubic meters per second, the supply has improved during the first half of July to 570 cubic meters in an amount more than the allocated share of Syria from the Euphrates River, amounting to 500 m3 per second stressing that it will gradually reflect on the water levels ın case of the continuation of the supplies.
“The most prominent difficulties in the sector of potable water in the current period associate with the ceasation of the implementation of a number of important projects in Homs, Hama and Idlib as well as the control of terrorist groups on water sources and the exit of some facilities and service lines for long periods and the large loss of water systems, and demographic changes,” Eng. Gregg stated.
“There are actions to confront the difficulties and ensure the continuation of services of drinking water by providing new water sources (wells) in particular and ensuring necessary pumps, electricity lines and tanks, as some of these wells are linked to the existing network,” he added.
“The Syrian Red Crescent and international organisations helped to provide drinking water to the people and securing a large number of water pumps for wells and emergency generators operating on diesel in collaboration with the home donor organizations and the Syrian Red Crescent,” Eng. Gregg clarıfied.
The Ministry of Water Resources continued during the last period to provide services for the delivery of irrigation water for public irrigation systems for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014, amounting to about 4.8 million acres, where possible, the arrival of workers to the sites of providing water, the work and maintenance did not stop in the Euphrates basin in spite of all the hard circumstances.
Sharif al Khatib