Irrigation Department digs 35 wells in Missan

MISSAN/IraqiNews.com: Missan’s department of Wells on Friday announce it completed digging 35 well for human and animal use in the border province’s eastern part. “The well were dug to shore up the shortage of Tigris supply to Missan’s eastern part bordering Iran after Tigris water dropped to 40% of its normal levels,” Karim Alwan, the director of Wells Department, told IraqiNews.com. “The digging works were followed by installing pumping and water treating sweetening stations in areas where salinity percentage was too high”. Alwan said his department had installed pumping and water sweetening stations for 35 wells across the province and would expand to different area across the Missan. In 2007, average rainfall was just 40 percent of the normal level in Iraq, falling more than half and severely affecting water levels and crop production according to latest statistics by the Agriculture Ministry. The drought has worsened the suffering of Iraqis struggling to cope with a chronic scarcity of water, electricity and fuel while they seek to shake the effects of decades of isolation under former leader Saddam Hussein and five years of war. AM(S) 1