98 The Future of Water in African Cities
is overextended. The NWSC reports that the high sediment load damages pumps and reduces the efficiency of settling tanks and clarifiers. The town has a critical power shortage and the NWSC has been forced to use its own generator. This has resulted in high operational power costs of US$0.24 per cubic meter (NWSC, 2012). In addition, the power shortage results in interruption of operations due to lack of fuel for pumping. The intermittent pumping of water into the distribution network exacerbates cross-contamination of water supplies. The water supply network is currently being extended as far as Kuluva, which is about 11 kilometers from Arua. According to NWSC, the expansion is straining the capacity of the distribution system, and a number of locations are experiencing low-pressure conditions. Improper drainage and wastewater management threatens drinking water quality. Current NWSC records indicate that the piped water supply covers about 50 percent of the residents. The rest use alternative sources such as boreholes, springs, and streams. According to the officials in the municipality, some of the residents dump their septic waste into pits overnight to avoid the cost of emptying by service providers. These practices are likely to cause groundwater pollution, particularly in areas where the groundwater table is high. According to a water quality survey by the consulting firm Cowater International (2005), all boreholes except two in Arua municipality showed heavy fecal contamination, indicating that aquifers are being polluted by poor sanitation. Furthermore, the town lacks a properly designed drainage system and during the field visit, a number of water supply pipes were observed to be crossing the drainage channels, thus being exposed to cross-contamination. Inadequate solid waste management exacerbates the challenge of contaminant ingress into the water supply system. This is because some water supply pipes cross the drainage channels that tend to be used as informal solid waste dumps, thus causing stale water to accumulate around the (less than watertight) water supply pipes. These negative interactions underline the need to view the water cycle as a single system in system planning, design, and implementation. New surface water sources exist but are costly. One of the alternative surface water sources under consideration is 22 kilometers away from the town at Olewa, which is also the location for a proposed hydropower plant along the Enyau River (see Figure 4.9). Another alternative source under consideration is the Nile River, located about 40 kilometers from the town (Fred, 2011). Olewa can provide sufficient quantity to meet the 2035 Arua demand and the Nile can provide sufficient quantity for any imaginable demand from Arua. For this reason, many people prefer the