Roof run-off water supply in Samoa. (Photo by Red Cross)

It is almost a year since Samoa’s devastating tsunami and an ongoing task for aid agencies is providing for the supply of safe water.

Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Geoffrey Bell.

As access to water was declared a fundamental human right by the United Nations this month, the move couldn’t come soon enough for many in southeast Samoa, nearly a year on from the devastating tsunami.

The tsunami that struck on September 29 last year, triggered by a 8.3-magnitude earthquake, destroyed 20 villages and made more than 3000 people homeless.

Since then, many who once lived next to the sea on the south east coast have moved inland to rebuild their lives. The move to higher plantation land has meant that people have had to rebuild essential infrastructure.

One of the biggest challenges for the Samoan government and aid agencies helping people to start from scratch has been the supply of safe water.

John Shepherd, the Oxfam Samoa humanitarian programme co-ordinator in 2009, was involved with water and sanitation aid immediately after the tsunami hit.
“During the first 48 hours of the tsunami we were working with the Samoa Water Authority and the Red Cross to truck water to people. At its peak the supplies were reaching 4500 people.”

Needs change

Shepherd says as days went on, water supply needs changed from, “Have people got enough clean water to drink, to, have they got enough water for cooking and washing?”

New Zealand Red Cross spokesperson, Paul Scoringe says his organisation worked alongside the Samoan and Australian Red Cross to relocate people to higher ground “about two kilometres from the beach.”

As there were few existing sources of running water, the Samoan Water Authority and aid agencies transported water to people with tankers until infrastructure could be developed.

Eleven months on, Shepherd says there has been a movement away from water tankers to rain water-harvesting solutions.

“We’re now setting up families with systems that catch rain water so they can gather it themselves. Essentially it’s a bit like rain water harvesting for a classic Kiwi bach – most of them have a water tank collecting rain coming off the guttering and some kind of basic filter so that it is drinkable.”

Pacific water expert Dave Neru says although there would still be bird droppings on roofs, the water quality from rainwater harvesting systems “should be fine” as there was little chance for contamination.

More cyclones

Community water supply in Samoa. (Photo by Red Cross)

Scoringe says it was important to look at lasting water supply options, as there will undoubtedly be more cyclones and storms on the horizon.

“You’ll find there’ll be another situation that will require the people and the infrastructure to be resilient.”

Samoa’s Ministry of Health currently has a targeted education programme for rural areas, which advises people how to manage rainwater-harvesting systems and how to prepare water before consumption.

While Neru praises the programme, he says the Ministry of Health should do more to monitor water quality.

“More of the concern is that the water quality is unknown in the rural areas because they don’t actually test their water for contaminants. There needs to be a robust water quality monitoring programme to ensure safe drinking water,” he says.

Lautua Faaofo of the Samoan Water Authority agrees that all Samoan people should have access to clean water.

“I feel it is really important to improve the standard of living and to reduce the number of those being affected by diseases.”

Common diseases

The Red Cross considers typhoid, gastroenteritis and diarrhoea as the most common waterborne diseases in Samoa.

Rodney Lui of SOPAC, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, says the incidence of diarrhoea is 4-5 times more likely in Samoa than in Australia and New Zealand.

However, Shepherd says since the introduction of rainwater harvesting “there have been no outbreaks of communicable disease in Samoa since the tsunami in the tsunami affected areas.”

To monitor water quality in the future, Faaofo says the government has set up a water resource division at the Ministry of Resources and Environment.

The Samoan Water Authority is also looking at a plan to drain water from a lake on the southeast which will supply 1700 people with water.

Those in the southeast may be better off with rain water systems if existing urban supply systems are anything to go by. The majority of urban water is sourced from Malololelei, Alaoa and Fuluasou JR treatment plants and 40 percent of the time urban water tests fail the national drinking standards.

Nero says the challenge for water suppliers around the world is actually working out what the community actually wants. He says in Samoa there is a trade off between water quality and supply.

Balancing costs

“If you spend all your money on good pipes and very little up in the catchment area, you’ll be transporting lots of poor water in good pipes. The other side is that if you spend a lot of money getting the water quality right you have to send it through poor pipes.”

In urban areas Faaofo says aging pipes are leaking so badly that it is becoming too expensive to chlorinate.

“We have a water loss percentage around 50 to 60 percent which means we loose more than we use. We try and chlorinate but this is becoming expensive due to leakage. We do tests on a regular basis and 60 percent of the time the test results pass the national drinking standards.”

In terms of water pollution Faaofo says most of it comes from activities in the water catchment areas.

Nero says that would include deforestation, farming and human activities which are creating contaminants.

For many who do not wish to move inland, a return to life on the coast may still be possible.

Shephard says although there are many buildings along the coastline that have been completely or partially destroyed, there are some with potential.

“There are still many houses that are liveable,” he says, “The old water system used to hug the coast so there’ll be work there to get that up and running again.”

While Oxfam has plans to only stay until the anniversary of the tsunami, the Red Cross has a four-year plan to continue with water and sanitation.

Geoffrey Bell is a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.