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December 5, 2013 – Meeting Roundup

We are taking a road trip to the McFarland House at 409 South Queen Street this week. This will give members of the club a chance to see how beautiful downtown Martinsburg is during the Christmas holiday.
Mike Nailor will speak to us about the Rotary Ecuadorian Water Project, an endeavor our club is supporting.
We take for granted the clean water that comes from our tap, or in bottles, for us to drink. This is not true in other parts of the world. Tainted water carries diseases that we cannot even fathom. Drinking water supply and sanitation in Ecuador is characterized by a number of achievements and challenges. One key achievement is a significant increase in both access to an improved water source (82% in 1990 to 96% in 2010 in urban areas) and improved sanitation (77% in 1990 to 96% in 2010 in urban areas). Significant increases in coverage in urban areas were achieved both by the public utility EMAAP-Q, serving the capital Quito, and the private concessionaire Interagua in the country’s largest city Guayaquil. However, municipalities rely overwhelmingly upon central government investment, rather than recouping the costs at a local level. Another problem is intermittent water supply, which affects half of the urban areas. Also, only 8% of all collected wastewater is being treated. The level of non-revenue water is estimated at 65%, one of the highest in Latin America. Addressing these challenges is complicated by the atomization of the sector: A multitude of stakeholders – the Ministry of Housing, the Emergency Social Investment Fund, the Solidarity Fund, the State Bank, NGOs, municipalities and others – intervene in the sector. Despite the existence of an Interinstitutional Committee for Water and Sanitation there remains room to improve coordination.
In 2004, water supply coverage (piped on premises) stood at 90% in urban and 67% in rural areas while improved sanitation coverage in 2004 was 95% of urban and 79% of rural households. Coverage for both water and sanitation services tends to be lower in the “costa” and “oriente” than in the sierra. In addition, water supply coverage varies greatly by income, reaching about 90% for the top three income deciles in urban areas compared with levels of only about 60% for the bottom three income deciles. Potable water supply efficiency is usually measured through labor productivity and the level of unaccounted-for water. In terms of manpower, the best practices of the region reflect less than 3 employees per 1000 connections. In less populated areas, it can be difficult to determine the number of employees per connection, as services are often bundled by the government with other civic services, but the World Bank estimates that the number of employees per connection exceeds this in medium-sized towns, with somewhere between 5 and 14 employees assigned per 1000 connections.
Rotary is working to provide clean, potable water to Ecuador, and this week we will learn how.

Jerry Mays