Baku Runs Dry

"I have a huge heap of linen to wash but I don’t have enough water to fill a teapot," said 35-year-old housewife Sadagat Mamedova.

Mamedova and her neighbours in the settlement of Binagadi, north of Baku, all have the same complaint. As Sevil, an elderly neighbour, explained, the water shortages are getting worse and worse.

"Three years ago, we received water for two hours twice a day,” said Sevil. “Since last year, we’ve been getting it only once a day, according to a timetable, from seven until half past eight in the evening. However, since the summer started, we’ve had running water only once every two or even three days. In addition, we are always at a loss as we never know when it will start running. And the pressure is so low that it’s impossible to fill the water tank.”

Fizuli Akhundov, a former Baku city official, said that the capacity of the water system in the capital is out of date. "These lines were meant for city’s population as it was 20 years ago,” he said. “The population was 1.8 million then, but it’s more than three million now.”

Azerbaijan's water resources are seven times smaller than Georgia's and four times smaller than Armenia's. The Kura and Araz rivers are the main sources of drinking water, and almost four million people, or 40 per cent of Azerbaijan's population, use water from the former.

However, tests show that water quality in these rivers falls far below accepted standards, with high levels of pollution from sewage lines and tributaries flowing into the rivers.

"In the Soviet era, special biological filters were used to clean the water from the Kura. They were installed on the Kura-Baku water pipe near the village of Talish in Sabirabad district,” said Akhundov. “However, they have not functioned for 20 years now. At present, we have almost no water cleaning system at all."

Professor of medicine Adil Geibulla warns that microbes in drinking water can rapidly cause epidemics of gastroenteric diseases. "Sometimes, drinking water gets mixed with sewage and industrial waste,” he said, adding that “the current pollution of drinking water is caused not only by bacteria and viruses but also by the construction work under way in Baku".

Elnur Gasimov, the leading engineer at the state-owned water company Azersu, defends the government, pointing out that much of the new housing constructed in Baku lacks the proper water facilities. "The 25 pumping facilities and water cleaning systems are able to supply water ony to those settlements and districts that were designed in the Soviet period," Gasimov told IWPR.

He added that accidents are frequent because the housing departments do not repair damaged mains or the branch connections to apartments.

The newest pipes were installed 30 years ago, and are in urgent need of repair because years of neglect.

According to Gasimov, only 12 or 15 streets in Baku's prestigious Sabaili district have continuous running water. Others have their water rationed according to a schedule.

Surai Gurbanova, 52, who lives in Ataturk avenue in the Narimanov district, says that about six years ago, her house had water 24 hours a day, but things started getting worse once multistorey apartment blocks began springing up all around them. Each time another building was finished, the water supply was cut further.

"Right now, no water is supplied to the house from one in the afternoon until six in the evening and from midnight until eight in the morning,” said Gurbanova. “We were obliged to install a water tank because of this problem, even though the cheapest costs 250,000 manats [around 50 US dollars]."

To make things worse, from January 2005 the charge levied on water for household use was doubled, from 185 to 370 manats (7.7 cents) per cubic metre. Commercial tariffs also went up.

According to Vusal Gasimly, director of the Institute for Economic Technologies, the problem is that the official figures for water use are incorrect, and this is distorting the way policy is shaped.

Azersu data show that the average person in Baku consumes 12 cubic metres of water a month, or about 400 litres a day. In reality, it is simply impossible to consume so much water in most of Baku's districts, where water is rationed, and hardly ever reaches the upper floors of multistorey blocks. In Moscow, the average is 200 litres of water a day.

Gasimly suggested that the true figure for per capita water consumption in Baku is between 100 and 150 litres. “There is a difference of 25-30 million dollars between the estimated and real figures for water consumption,” he concluded. “It would be very good if the finance and tax ministries, the audit chamber and the law enforcement agencies would pay attention to this and find out who is in Azerbaijan's water mafia.”

The World Bank has allocated 61 million dollars in loans to the Azerbaijani government to spend on restoring Baku's water supply system, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has allocated 23 million dollars for the same purpose, while the government plans to spend 10.9 million dollars of its own money.

Gasimov says these credits come at a high price, and would never have been needed if the estimates for water use had not been put so high, "We will have to return these loans with 10-20 per cent interest, which will be a major blow to Azerbaijan's economy.”

He says that instead of loans, what is needed to improve water supplies is “meticulously formulated and audited investment projects.”

Sevinj Telmangizi is a reporter for Yeni Musavat newspaper in Baku.