America's North Shore Journal

It is difficult for Americans to appreciate the significance of steps such as a canal clean up. We take clean water for granted and do all we can to ensure that our waterways are usable. In Iraq, it is a different matter. A simple thing like cleaning up a canal system has many ramifications, people’s health, agriculture, the local economy, and all those things that these basic improvements then create. Local Iraqis are cleaning the 250-kilometer Hahwar canal system to improve the distribution of water from the Tigris River to southwest Wasit Province. The canal system provides water to 240,000 donums (59,000 acres) of crop land, roughly 10 percent of the arable land in Wasit, which is home to over 2,000 farmers. “It’s been almost two years since the canals were cleaned, and … Read entire article »