Ahmad Noah, who lives in Tobruk, in eastern Libya, is forced to transport water to his house in a rented truck. Although he lives within the city’s limits, the water network lines do not supply water to his town.

“How could we have a stable life when we lack the basic element of it?” asked the governmental employee. “How could we spread happiness and liveliness in our homes when we are deprived of the one source of all living things?”

Exploitation of drivers

Ahmad Noah, who lives in Tobruk, in eastern Libya, is forced to transport water to his house in a rented truck. Although he lives within the city’s limits, the water network lines do not supply water to his town.

“How could we have a stable life when we lack the basic element of it?” asked the governmental employee. “How could we spread happiness and liveliness in our homes when we are deprived of the one source of all living things?”

Exploitation of drivers

Abdulsalam Kahashi, who also suffers the same problem, is angered by how he gets water for his family. “The need for water compels us to succumb to the exploitation of truck owners.” Kahashi, like many others, is forced to pay 70 Libyan dinars (US $56) to a truck driver for transporting a load of 50 barrels of water in one shipment.

A truck driver explained that the fee applies to shipping water within the city, but it increases upon transporting water to the suburbs. “The cost of living has increased, not to mention that the economic sector has not set a definite fee for water transport,” the truck driver elaborated. The same justification was cited by the municipal officials, for not controlling water transport fees or the exploitation of truck drivers.

One single station

Water shortage, on top of its scarcity and high price, seems to be the prominent issue affecting the citizens of Tobruk, despite the availability of a desalination station as the sole water source, which supplies the city with a production capacity ranging from 35 to 40 thousand cubic meters per day.

Head of Tobruk’s water desalination Station Mohamed Rizk said: “The station’s role is limited to producing water, whereas its distribution is the responsibility of Tobruk’s Services Office. The daily production is properly channeled to the tanks of the water company via the newly established line, which prevents random channeling, to which citizens resort, rather than the old one that results in a water waste amounting to 11,000 cubic meters out of the afore mentioned daily production.”

Rizk believes that the fundamental factors that would solve the water crisis in Tobruk are represented in “citizens’ awareness and commitment, the effectiveness of the water network in the city and the just distribution of water.”

“The desalination station is determined to produce water in full capacity even at maintenance intervals as its management adopts a process that enables the station to produce during maintenance by maintaining each of the three units separately,” he added.

Alternative solutions

On the other hand, Omran Gharib, Head of Project Management at the Water Company in the eastern region and Head of Tobruk’s Services Office, said: “The only source of water in Tobruk is a desalination station that produces an insufficient amount for a city that is recordign a steady increase in its population.” He also emphasized the urgent need of establishing another water source.

Gharib mentioned current attempts to find a solution to this problem referring to a former contract with an Austrian company to establish a new station with a production capacity of 40,000 cubic meters in Marsas, 30 kilometers west of Tobruk, but legal complications related to land ownership delayed the execution of the project, which was further hampered by the security situation.

“The government is indifferent to the aggravation of the water problem. There are available alternative solutions it could resort to, as numerous difficulties could be overcome by volunteering parties that compensate the absence of the government,” Gharib said.

The security conditions

Gharib referred to deteriorated security conditions and the incidents of deliberate vandalism of public utilities intended to raise tension saying, “The station of water transport trucks which cost 70,000 Libyan dinars was burned completely by an unjustified sabotage activity. We have sent more than 12 correspondences to the security forces in the city asking for providing protection services but to no avail.”

The deteriorated water network in Tobruk dates back to the 1980s, according to the head of the city’s services office. “When its population did not exceed 50,000 people, but after decades of its establishment, the population of Tobruk doubled and consequently new residential neighborhoods were built without a water network and thus water was channeled through water transport trucks,” he said.

“Water is available to the citizen at 250 Dirhams ($US 68) per square meter while its production cost amounts to 860 Dirhams (US $234),” he said.

Global standards

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) standards, which determined the individual’s capita of water at 250 liters per day, Tobruk needs, according to the latest census in 2006, to produce 45,000 cubic meters of water per day; more than the current production capacity of the single station in Tobruk.

These water needs do not consider farms, factories, livestock and the internal immigration rates from other Libyan cities that were destroyed during the revolution, which resulted in an abnormal increase in population growth.