EDITORIAL

ENPHO SALUTES BHAIRAB DAI

On the occasion of ENPHO’s 18th General Assembly ENPHO honoured the efforts of eminent environmental journalist Mr. Bhairab Risal. “Bhairab Dai,” as he is affectionately known to all of us, has been in the forefront of Nepal’s environment movement for many years and he continues to raise his voice on various environmental issues and lunch innovative campaigns to ensure that all Nepalese enjoy their rights to a clean environment and information. Whether it is taking parliamentarians on a tour of Bagmati of distributing solar lamps in the remote villages of Karnali, Bhairab Dai has always led from the front. Although he is now 84 years young, he has more energy and enthusiasm than most people half his age and is a source of inspiration to all of us. Recently he won the National Journalism award and decided to use the Rs. 200,000 prize to minimize his contribution to Bagmati’s pollution. We are proud to provide him with the necessary technical support to set up systems for rain water harvesting, wastewater treatment and generation of biogas from waste.

HIGHLIGHTS OF ENPHO'S ANNUAL REPORT 2008/09

---

:: ENPHO NEWS ::

CONSULTATIVE WORKSHOP ON ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH BENEFITS AND PERFORMANCE OF ICS

On 18 August, ENPHO together with AEPC/ESAP organized a workshop to discuss the findings of the research on follow up monitoring of environmental and health benefits and Performance of Improved Cookstoves. The workshop, which included stakeholders from renewable energy, pollution, and health sectors, had presentations by Karuna Bajracharya, Program Manager of Biomass component of ESAP, and Bhushan Tuladhar and Ashish Sing from ENPHO.

URBAN ENVIRONMENT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT IN DHULIKHEL

16 members of users committee and 12 political leaders participated in the refresher leadership training organized on July 17 and 20. The main objective was to review the role of users group and political leaders in carrying out community development activities, update the progress and identify the activities for additional community development programs. The training was facilitated by social mobilization experts, Mr. Satya Lal Mool and Mr. Dilli Ram Adhikari.

RESEARCH & DEMONSTRATION OF NUTRIENT RECYCLING IN HORTICULTURE CENTER

ENPHO along with Central Horticulture Center (CHC) has been conducting research on urine application in different fruit seedlings. For this ENPHO has constructed two wet Ecosan toilets with drip irrigation system in CHC. Now research has been carried out in lime seedlings and data has also been collected. The analyses will continue for three months.

ENPHO and CHC has also been promoting different composting technologies, especially vermi composting. During the third year of this partnership, the project has successfully demonstrated vermi composting along with other composting technologies in several districts. Productivity analysis has shown that vermi compost gives better yield than ordinary compost. Vermi compost with its brand name “BAGWANI” has been promoted in the local market and the market demand is also high.

REVIEW MEETING ON PROMOTION OF HOUSEHOLD DRINKING WATER TREATMENT

A review meeting with all the five partners was organized at Kathmandu on August 30, 2009 to assess the experiences of Partnership for Safe Water, a campaign launched with the support of UN-HABITAT, Coca Cola company and five municipalities. During the meeting, partners presented their progress and experience till date and prepared an action plan for the remaining period of the project. In Lalitpur, the review meeting was conducted with the 18 community mobilizers to discuss the on going activities in the community and future planning for intensive monitoring.

Altogether 143 HHs of Lalitpur and Nepalgunj were monitored, out of which 41HHs are using SODIS, 29 are boiling water, 42 are using candle filter, 7 are using chlorine solution and 44 are not using any treatment option. Many people are using multiple options like boiling and filter/filter and chlorine solution.

SCHOOL SANITATION AND HYGIENE EDUCATION PROGRAM LAUNCHED AT GUNDU

ENPHO and Kiwachoke Drinking water User's Committee jointly conducted one day training on School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) at three different schools and established 13-member SSHE teams in all the schools.

RESOURCE CENTRE NETWORKS AT WORLD WATER WEEK

Resource Centre Networks (RCNs) from five countries (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Honduras, Nepal and Uganda) partnered with IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre to place an exhibition booth at Stockholm World Water Week 2009. Rabin Bastola from RCN Nepal attended and ‘manned’ the booth in association with IRC colleagues from 16-21 August 2009. He was also involved in WaterCube.tv’s activities. More than 100 video interviews of participants of WWW have been uploaded by the team at www.watercube.tv. The Stockholm World Water Cube is a joint project between Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), IRC and Akvo.org. On the same occasion he also had a meeting with representatives from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Water Integrity Network (WIN) and Freshwater Action Network (FAN) regarding collaboration with their activities. RCNN Secretariat has been hosted by ENPHO.

SWASHTHA PROJECT LAUNCHES SLTS IN 26 SCHOOLS

Three days orientation sessions on School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS) to headmasters, teachers, school management committee and teacher parents association representatives were organized in Gularia and Tikapur Municipalities as part of the SWASTHA project, that is being implemented by ENPHO and Practical Action Nepal. Altogether 67 representatives from 16 schools participated in the programmes. Previously, similar orientation had been organized for 10 schools of Patihani and Sharadanagar VDC of Chitwan District.

PARTICIPATIONS/PRESENTATIONS

• Mr. Prajwol Shrestha (Program Manager), Ms. Luna Kansakar (Project Officer) and Mr. Rabin Shrestha(Research Assistant) participated in ‘Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Training’ organized by WaterAid Nepal in Godawari, Kathmandu from 25 –28 Aug 2009.
• Luna K. Kansakar, Project officer at ENPHO, visited Bangalore, India on 17th – 22rd, August 2009 to participate in the training on “Decentralised Wastewater Treatment Systems (DEWATS). The training was basically focused on to the technologies related to the establishment of DEWATS with maximum practical exposure.

Top

---

:: LOCAL NEWS ::

KTM'S POLLUTION MONITORING DEFUNCT

Amid ever increasing rate of pollution, breathing in fresh air is almost out of the question in the Valley. And now, the authorities are not in a condition to warn the Valley denizens even if they are inhaling poisonous gases as the six pollution monitoring stations here have been lying defunct for five months.  The stations were set up at Putali Sadak, Patan, Bhaktapur, Matsegaon , Tribhuvan University  and Thamel in 2003 so as to monitor gaseous pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide , carbon and benzene. But, after functioning well for almost six years, they are not operational since March 2009.The stations were set up with the financial and technical support from DANIDA. According to the agreement between the government and DANIDA, the government had agreed to pay 30% of the monitoring cost for 2006, 50 % for 2007 and 70% for 2008 and the remaining cost was to be borne by DANIDA. “The stations faced closure after the government could not pay the amount in time,” said Ramesh Sthapit of Ministry of Environment. Subsequently, the entrusted monitoring  agency — Environment and Public Health Organisation — also failed to get Rs 2.5 million of total agreed Rs 4.1 million. “Although we were providing data on a regular basis even due to the financial crunch, the 16-hour load shedding in 2008/09 virtually made our work impossible,” says Tuladhar, who is also Executive Director of ENPHO. “We apprised the authorities of our plight but no response was given. And finally, the ministry ordered us to stop the work and we followed it,” he added.
Source: The Himalayan Times, 3 Aug

EXPERTS: WATER, SANITATION A MUST

Experts on Friday appealed to the government to establish water and sanitation as fundamental rights in the new constitution. They want a high-level political statement that water and sanitation are also the government’s priorities. At the current rate of progress, the government will miss its ambitious target of providing water and sanitation to all by 2017.  “There is need for urgent action to meet the target in the given time,” said Rabin Lal Shrestha, research and advocacy manager at WaterAid in Nepal.

According to Basanta Adhikari, legal expert, incorporation of water and sanitation as constitutional rights will help enforce a legal framework and take the government towards progressive realisation of the goal of providing safe water and sanitation to all. At the same time, constitutional reorganisation will benefit citizens enabling them to claim their fundamental rights. Adhikari said, the country has already signed different international conventions on water and sanitation. It however lags behind in the implementation aspects. Among countries that have already recognised water and sanitation as constitutional rights are Bangladesh, South Africa, Honduras, Algeria and Kenya, among others.
Source: www.ekantipur.com, 22 Aug

COMPOSTING CAN REDUCE GARBAGE LOAD BY 80 PC

Even as the government and the locals of the Sisdole Landfill Site have reached 53 agreements so far, waste management continues to remain the capital´s perennial problem. Experts suggest that the problem could be tackled if we could significantly reduce the volume of garbage by setting up compost plants in our own backyards. This can bring down the volume of garbage by almost 80 per cent, experts claim. Bhushan Tuladhar, executive director of the Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO), claimed that waste could even be turned into a source of income.

Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur produce 360 tons, 75 tons and 26 tons of waste, respectively, every day. Sixty-eight per cent of the waste produced is organic. If that can be composted, and 13-16 percent waste that include plastic, glasses, metals and bottles be reused, the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) would only have to manage 16-19 percent of the total waste produced in the Valley. This would in turn also reduce greenhouse emissions, thereby making a contribution to reducing global warming.
Source: www.myrepublica.com, 6 Aug

INVEST ON CLEAN ENVIRONMENT FOR HEALTH

At a time when the people of the mid and far west region are struggling with diarrhea , which is lately proved to be cholera, outbreak, Bhusan Tuladhar, executive director of ENPHO (Environment and Public Health Organization ), is busy in overseeing the preparation of Piyush , a chlorine solution for purifying water, to send to the cholera hit region. “You see medicine can treat the diarrhoea , which is symptom of greater problem, and Piyush will help people get ride of the greater problem- safe drinking water,” Tuladhar, who is planning to send some 5,000 bottles of Piyush a day to the region, says.

Established in 1990 ENPHO has been developing devices and technologies that are aimed at what Tuladhar says solving the root cause of health problems. “We develop, innovate and promote devices for preventing health hazards which at the same time address environmental problems as health and environment are interlinked.” ENPHO is supported by many national and international organizations. “We started our work when there were few organizations working in the field of environment and health. We are fortunate that we are supported by agencies like UNICEF, WaterAid, UN-HABITIT and SIMAVI.”
Source: Health Times, Aug

5000 TOILETS TO BE MADE IN MIDWEST

According to Minister for Health and Population Umakanta Chaudhary, the government was planning to construct 5,000 toilets in three months in the diarrhea hit areas of Jajarkot and Rukum. Minister Chaudhary said that the government had prepared a relief package for the people affected by the epidemic. The package included measures like water purification in the epidemic hit villages, distributionof 10 kg rice and 1 kg salt for each family suffering from malnutrition, installing of CDMA phones in each Village Development Committee in the disease affected districts and concluding awareness programmes.
Source: The Rising Nepal, 4 Aug

MID-WEST EPIDEMIC SEES YOUTH RESPONSE

Paschim Paaila, a campaign launched by the Nepali youth in response to the diarrhoea epidemic in mid-western Nepal, organised an assessment and planning session which analysed the experiences of the volunteers who had gone to the diarrhoea-affected districts. Paschim Paaila was initiated immediately after the first outbreak of the epidemic in the first week of July, and has sent 63 volunteers to Jajarkot, Rukum, Surkhet, and Dailekh districts. The first team left for the districts on July 23 for a period of two weeks, and the second team left on July 29 for a week. The volunteers shared their experiences in the districts and made their recommendations through five presentations. Dushala Adhikari of the team that went to Jajarkot said that poverty, chronic malnutrition, and lack of sanitation and awareness were the major problems in the area, and that the outbreak could not be controlled without checking those first. Ashok Kumar, a student who went to Dailekh, gave a lively presentation about the poverty and illiteracy in the region, and suggested that education would be the first step towards solving the problem. The absence of toilets in the region was also a major cause of concern. Bhushan Tuladhar, director of Environmental and Public Health Organisation, said that it was the vigour and willingness in young people that had made a rapid response to the outbreak possible. Paschim Paaila will send more volunteers to the epidemic-affected region. Apart from sending volunteers to the districts, the organisation has produced 20,000 bottles of water purifying solution.
Source: www.ekantipur.com, 12 Aug

RESPONSIBILITY OF GARBAGE MANAGEMENT TO COMMERCIAL COMPANY

The government is preparing to give the responsibility of garbage management to commercial company to solve garbage problem in the Kathmandu valley. The cabinet of ministers has decided to rope in private sector in garbage management after more than a dozen renowned commercial companies proposed the government for commercial garbage management. The government has formed 11-member high-level committee to give responsibility of garbage management to private company after competition among the commercial companies. The high-level committee includes secretaries of Ministry of Local Development, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Physical Planning and Works, Ministry of Land and chief executive officer of Kathmandu Metropolitan City as members and general manager of Solid Waste Management and Resource Mobilization Centre as member-secretary. The government has fixed work order for the committee to complete the procedure within three months.
Source: Nagarik, 19 August

RAINWATER HARVESTING TO RECHARGE RANIPOKHARI

Around 3.5 million litres of rainwater is to be harvested annually for recharging Rani Pokhari. Rainwater Harvesting Systems have been installed in the buildings of Tri-Chandra Campus and Durbar High School at Jamal to collect rooftop rainwater and recharge Ranipokhari with the harvested rainwater. “Earlier, around 2.6 million litres of rainwater was being collected the rooftops of Tri-Chandra Campus and Durbar High School buildings and recharged into the Ranipokhari annually," said Prakash Amatya, executive director, NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation, adding, “Water level of the Rani Pokhari will further rise after additional 0.9 million litres of rainwater is diverted into the pond after collection from the two building of Tri-Chandra with the financial support of WWF Nepal this year." According to Amatya, a total of 3.5 million litre of rainwater will be harvested and diverted into the historic pond after installation of the system.

Neera Shrestha Pradhan, program manager-Freshwater, WWF Nepal told that her organization has supported for installing the system with the objective of utilizing unused rainwater. “This model work will encourage the general public to harvest rainwater and recharge the groundwater. NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation has provided technical support to Youth Red Cross Circle Tri-Chandra Campus to install the system in the campus having catchment area of 25000 m2.
Source: Gorkhapatra, August 18, 2009

WANT TO CONTEST ELECTIONS? HAVE A TOILET FIRST AT HOME

Local leaders in Surkhet have agreed to make it mandatory for a candidate contesting the local elections to have a toilet in his/her house. The decision comes in the wake of cholera outbreak in the western region that has claimed as many as 300 lives as of yet. It is also a part of the action plan chalked out by the District Development Committee and water supply and sanitation office to make Surkhet free of open defecation by 2015. Chiefs and representatives of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Nepali Congress, Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), Madhesi People´s Rights Forum, National People´s Front, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Nepal Workers´ and Peasants´ Party and Rastriya Janashakti Party signed the commitment letter to implement the action plan. At present, only 33.36 percent of the 60,000 households in Surkhet have toilets.
Source: www.myrepublica.com, 16 Aug

REBATE IN BUILDING PERMIT FEE FOR INSTALLING RWH

Are you constructing a new house in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) or adding floors in your house? Take advantage of the fee rebate opportunity provided by the KMC which is providing 10 percent rebate on the building permit fee from the current fiscal year for houses that install rainwater harvesting system. The Kathmandu Valley needs about 300 million litres of water daily but only 100 million liters daily is available in the dry season and 150 million litres in the rainy season. KMC charges Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 25,000 per building permit from around 4000 building permits in the metropolis every year. Ram Thapa, Head of Building Permit Section -KMC clarified that rebate will be provided only after completing building construction with rainwater harvesting system installed. He added that the rebate will be provided for having the system of groundwater recharge through harvested rainwater.
Source: Annapurna Post, 24 August

Top

---

:: GLOBAL NEWS ::

QUICK CLIMATE CHANGES FIXES COME WITH HUGE DANGERS, WARN SCIENTISTS

Plans to reduce global warming by blasting jets of water into the atmosphere or placing mirrors in space could have devastating consequences, two climate scientists warn today. They say that while such ideas may be highly effective, they could lead to severe droughts. Susan Solomon, a climate scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Gabi Hegerl, a climate scientist at the University of Edinburgh, caution against the entrepreneurial “we can fix this thing” approach and say that a calm, methodical inquiry is needed. “We’re not against climate engineering but we need to understand the consequences better than we do now before rushing into such a massive experiment,” Professor Hegerl said. They say in the journal Science that climate modelling has focused largely on temperatures and that current models do a poor job at predicting rainfall.
Source: www.timesonline.co.uk, 7 Aug

RIGHT TO SANITATION: UN INDEPENDENT EXPERT’S REPORT TO BE PRESENTED IN SEPTEMBER

A report outlining the human rights obligations related to sanitation will be presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in September 2009. Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque wrote the report as part of her duties as Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation. In her report De Albuquerque supports the recognition of sanitation as a distinct right. “The inextricable links between sanitation and so many human rights mean that international human rights law requires States to ensure access to sanitation that is safe, hygienic, secure, affordable, socially and culturally acceptable, provides privacy and ensures dignity in a non discriminatory manner”, she concludes. “However, only looking at sanitation through the lens of other human rights does not do justice to its special nature, and its importance for living a dignified life”, she adds. In 2009, Ms. De Albuquerque has chosen to focus on the human rights obligations related to sanitation. She held an expert consultation, and a public consultation, to inform her work on this issue in April. As a follow up to that meeting the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) published a position statement in which they voiced their support for the recognition of “sanitation as a stand alone right apart from the right to water.”
Source: www.sanitationupdates.wordpress.com,5 August

LACK OF CLEAN WATER, SANITATION COSTS MILLIONS: GROUP

The lack of clean water and sanitation is costing Cambodia around half a billion dollars every year in poor health and a loss of tourists, a study has found. In a discussion titled, “Water is Medicine,” Jaehyang So, manager of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program, said that a study commissioned by the organization on economic impacts caused by the lack of water and sanitation shows that Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam lose around $9 billion every year. “All of a sudden, the lack of sanitation became not a problem of the poor person that doesn’t have access to sanitation, but it became a real constraint to economic growth in the country,” she told an audience of health experts and policymakers last week in Washington.
Source: www.voanews.com/khmer/2009-08-03-voa6.cfm, 3 Aug

PHILIPPINES – FLOATING SANITARY TOILETS

The ‘floating sanitary toilets’ (FST), a local innovative sanitation technology developed by the Center for Health Development of the Department of Health for La Union, Pangasinan and Ilocos residents is a low cost pour-flush sanitation facility which floats on water. Its structure and waste treatment materials are made of locally available indigenous materials such as bamboo, nipa, sawali, used plastic drums, sea corals or river gravel/stones, charcoal and garden soil. It was conceptualized in response to the challenge of preventing the contamination of the different bodies of water with e. coli, vibrio cholera and other micro-organisms causing severe diarrheal diseases and outbreaks.
Source: sanitationupdates.wordpress.com, 27 Aug

ECOSAN: AN APPROACH TO TURN WASTE INTO WEALTH

Piloting eco-san toilet at Beisumpuikam village under Peren district is a new approach which may be the first of its kind in Nagaland state. The objective of ecosan is to produce hygienically safe and useful resources from human wastes. This does not only improve the environmental situation, but also improves the living conditions in a sustainable way and lowers risks for human health. In brief it is an approach “to turn waste into wealth.”

“We are all aware that the existing trend of very centralized water supply and sewage treatment systems is being increasingly challenged on grounds of operational difficulty, high energy and environmental costs,” stated a press note issued by the Care-Centre for Environment and Rural Poor (C-Cerp). The effectiveness of decentralized water supply and sanitation systems has been proved many a times and has a proven advantage of spreading water scarcity and operation problems. C-Cerp has constructed Eco-San toilets at Beisumpuikam village for the homes of 20 destitutes. It is sponsored by UNICEF-SEI. It was inaugurated at the project village on July 28, 2009 by Prakash Kumar, Sustainable Sanitation Expert EcoSanRes Programme, UNICEF- Stockholm Environment Institute.
Source: www.morungexpress.com, 16 Aug

Top 

---

:: WATER FACTS ::

• 3.575 million people die each year from water-related disease. (11)
• 43% of water-related deaths are due to diarrhea. (11)
• 84% of water-related deaths are in children ages 0 - 14. (11)
• 98% of water-related deaths occur in the developing world. (11)
• 884 million people, lack access to safe water supplies, approximately one in eight people. (5)
• The water and sanitation crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns. (1)
• At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease. (1)
• Less than 1% of the world’s fresh water (or about 0.007% of all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use. (12)
• An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. (1)
• About a third of people without access to an improved water source live on less than $1 a day. More than two thirds of people without an improved water source live on less than $2 a day. (1)
• Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city. (1)
• Without food a person can live for weeks, but without water you can expect to live only a few days. (4)
• The daily requirement for sanitation, bathing, and cooking needs, as well as for assuring survival, is about 13.2 gallons per person. (3)
• Over 50 percent of all water projects fail and less than five percent of projects are visited, and far less than one percent have any longer-term monitoring. (10)
  Source: www.water.org

Top 

---

:: DASHAIN & TIHAR GREETINGS ::

WE WISH ALL OF YOU A VERY HAPPY DASHAIN & TIHAR.

Top 

---

Any part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission from ENPHO, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. ENPHO would appreciate receiving a copy of any material that uses this publication as a source.

Edited by: Bhushan Tuladhar & Rabin Shrestha

Designed by: Babukaji Magar

---

To unsubscribe please email us at: rc@enpho.org with "unsubscription" in the subject field.

---

Environment and Public Health Organization
G.P.O. Box 4102
110/25 Aadarsha Marg, Naya Baneshwor
Kathmandu, NEPAL
Phone: 977-1- 4468 641 / 4493 188
Fax: 977-1- 4491 376
Email: rc@enpho.org
Website: http://www.enpho.org