ETNAR in repairing the damage from floods and landslides in BiH

The project ETNAR supports voluntary activities aimed at repairing the damage caused by floods and landslides in Kakanj, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Recent floods caused numerous landslides in BiH. One of these landslides completely destroyed around 50 meters of water pipeline in the Lipnica water supply system, Kakanj Municipality, which provides drinking water to 176 households.
As part of the project „Let’s be responsible in water management“ NGO „Alternative“ Kakanj provided support to activities to repair the water supply. On 19th May 2014 16 volunteers took part and worked under hard conditions to repair the damaged part of the pipeline. Repairs of landslide sites are still going on and require greater resources. As such, the repair of the water supply system is a temporary solution for providing drinking water to people who went several days without it.

The project „Let’s be responsible in water management“ has been supported by the ETNAR program that is financed by the EU from IPA funds.

The projects advocates for the adoption of the plan for protection of drinking water springs and water supply systems. There are 48 rural water supply systems in Kakanj municipality and neither of them is adequately regulated and protected. The Lipnica water supply system, mentioned above, is a successful example of establishing responsible water management.  This initiative has been supported by the project. Beneficiaries of the Lipnica water supply system formed the management board, defined management regulations and introduced monthly maintenance fee from which they obtained funds necessary for the repairs. Unfortunately, other water supply systems do not have established maintenance systems and it is becoming clearer that the protection plan that we mentioned above is the only sustainable solution to having sustainable water supply systems out of public water supply network. These are rural water supply systems, paid for and built by their beneficiaries who presently manage them in accordance with FBiH laws.

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