Recently, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), Stuart Bowen, visited the largest water project in Iraq. The Erbil-Ifraz water project will provide 6,000 cubic meters per hour of treated water to more than 450,000 residents of Erbil, Iraq, and has the capability of being expanded in the future by forty percent to 10,000 cubic meters. It sits besides an aging treatment plant that has only twenty percent of the new facility’s capacity.
Bowen visited the Ifraz water treatment plant construction site on the Great Zab River. There he learned of the five parts to the $154.2 million water system; the treatment plant in Ifraz, and other water-related reconstruction topics. He discussed the construction timetable, and the several contracts, to include a modification (adding the Erbil water distribution system tie-in from the Dawajin reservoir). The entire project consists of 13 construction packages. Bowen’s interest included the management of the contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers through the prime to the principal sub contractor.
During a “walk-about” of the riverside construction site, Bowen saw the work quality and received a working knowledge of how this treatment plant will function. The raw water intake will be gravity fed from the Great Zab River into a large pump house that will elevate the water to the start of its treatment process. From there, it is all downhill gravity-fed from one station to another, until it is ready to be sent on its way to Dawajin. To get the water to Erbil, a high lift pump station will provide enough energy to push the water up the 100-meter hill and through 20 kilometers of pipe to the intermediate pump station at Maroda. An additional boost of energy pushes the water up another 100 meters elevation before pouring into the 20,000 cubic meter reservoir at Dawajin.
The processing time is estimated to be about 15 hours from when water enters the initial lift house, until it is ready to be sent down the pipeline to the reservoir. At the day’s end, three pumps at Ifraz and three more at Maroda, with a capacity of 2,000 cubic meters per hour each, send the treated water over the hill to Dawajin. Four pumps will be installed at both Ifraz and Maroda, with one pump being in reserve for use during periodic pump maintenance. The pipeline to Dawajin includes two large surge tanks that will absorb any pressure changes in the pipeline due to a sudden startup, a valve opened or closed too fast, or a large sudden leak.
When this water project is put on line in the spring of 2006, estimates say it will be in continuous operation 24 hours a day for at least 40 years, and will employ 78 permanent workers (plus security) at the Ifraz site. Since last April, the project construction has employed, on average, 500 workers daily.
