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96–049PDF 2015

THE ROLE OF WATER IN AVOIDING CONFLICT

AND BUILDING PROSPERITY

JOINT HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND 

EMERGING THREATS

AND THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, 

GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

Serial No. 114–97

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS

DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman 

TED POE, Texas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, Chairman 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

AMI BERA, California 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. John Oldfield, chief executive officer, WASH Advocates ............................... 5

Mr. Denis Bilodeau, 1st vice president, Orange County Water District Board 

of Directors ........................................................................................................... 26

Dale Whittington, Ph.D., professor, University of North Carolina ..................... 33

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. John Oldfield: Prepared statement ................................................................. 8

Mr. Denis Bilodeau: Prepared statement .............................................................. 28

Dale Whittington, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ...................................................... 36

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 56

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 57

(1)

THE ROLE OF WATER IN AVOIDING 

CONFLICT AND BUILDING PROSPERITY 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS AND

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AFRICA, GLOBAL HEALTH, GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS, AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 2:07 p.m., in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher 

(chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging 

Threats) presiding. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I call to order this joint hearing of the European, Eurasian, Emerging Threat Subcommittee and the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and 

International Organizations for this afternoon’s hearing on issues 

dealing with clean water, sanitation, and the world. 

And I want to thank my fellow members here before I give an 

opening statement on my part. Thank you both for the contributions you have made to this hearing, but also to this issue over the 

years. You have both demonstrated such a high level of morality 

and concern for fellow human beings that will, in and of themselves, those concepts and as part of your soul, will serve our country well in the long run in terms we do what is right. We do what 

is good for the world in these ways, and make it a better world, 

it is clearly going to have very positive feedback and blowback on 

the United States, rather than negative blowback when all we rely 

on is weapons and trying to get things done by sending troops in 

the last minute to calm a situation down. So I want to thank you 

both for your moral and long-term thinking. 

Throughout recent hearings, the Europe and Eurasian Subcommittee has explored international water cooperation and discussed examples where water disputes between nations has led to 

increased tensions. And today we will be discussing water from the 

point of view of human security. 

Access to clean water is absolutely essential to each and every 

human being. That is why estimates that potentially billions of 

people in the coming decades will be living in water-stressed areas 

of the world. So this is a very troubling observation and prediction. 

Without access to water and the implications that it holds for personal hygiene, agriculture, industry, far too many people will be 

forced to accept lower standards of living. As Members of Congress 

2

concerned with foreign policy, we must think how this dynamic 

may spark conflicts over natural resources or destabilize very fragile governments. 

But this is not only a question for the future. It is a problem of 

today. This year, we know hundreds of thousands of children will 

needlessly die from diseases caused by a lack of clean water, plus 

many more than those hundreds of thousands, many more will die 

from some disease that can be traced right back to a lack of clean 

water. 

The toll in human suffering caused by a lack of water and dirty 

water is great, and I am sure witnesses here can explain those stories and how great a problem and challenge that it is. 

Yet, I believe the challenges of access to clean water, hygiene, 

and sanitization can be conquered, and we now have it within our 

grip, technologically and with the amount of wealth available in 

our societies, to actually overcome this enormous challenge. Our 

government through USAID has spent over $3.5 billion over the 

last decade on programs to do just that; not to mention the efforts 

of our international partners and nongovernmental organizations. 

I believe that as we continue to advance technologically and continue to have innovative ideas that we put into practice, that water 

scarcity can be managed and mitigated. Increasing human security 

when it comes to water access and hygiene will not only help improve the lives of these millions of vulnerable people, if not billions 

of people, but also serve as the strategic interest of the United 

States. If increasing access to clean water at the micro level helps 

people in communities to be secure, it follows that their governments will be better able to find solutions to international water 

disputes. 

So without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit additional questions and extraneous material. 

But before that, I would like to start off with Mr. Blumenauer 

or Mr. Smith. Mr. Blumenauer has sort of been our partner on this 

and several other significant matters. 

Mr. Blumenauer, would you enlighten us with an opening statement? 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you for the 

courtesy of permitting me to join you and Chairman Smith in this 

hearing, laying an important foundation. This has been an area of 

deep personal concern of mine. I have been pleased that in recent 

Congresses we have been able to get a couple of significant pieces 

of legislation to focus American foreign policy on water and sanitation. And I would say that there have been no two stronger champions in this bipartisan effort than the two of you. And so I am 

deeply appreciative of your leadership and your partnership, and it 

is truly an honor for me to join you. 

You laid it out, Mr. Chairman. We have got some certified smart 

people here who can round out this picture who have been active 

in recent years. I have had a chance to meet some, and have a new 

acquaintance here. But the intersection of water, national security, 

and massive dilemmas in terms of human wellbeing, are significant. There are 261 waterways that cross international boundaries. 

In some cases, like the Danube, it is 19 countries in the heart of 

Europe. 

3

An unsettling number of some of the largest rivers in the world 

no longer flow to the oceans in the course of a year. They are dry 

for some or all of that period. More than 40 percent of the world’s 

population already lives in an area of physical water scarcity. 

And competition is fierce. It is estimated that 20 percent more 

irrigation water is going to be needed in the next 10 years to keep 

agriculture going. The Pacific Institute in California has drawn up 

a list of conflicts in which water has played a part, and they have 

identified over 200, 204 such incidents where water figured into 

international conflict. And 61 of those incidents were recent. Looks 

like the problem is getting more serious, not less. 

We have seen it in the Horn of Africa. Part of the chaos in Syria 

was the result of persistent drought that drove people out of the 

countryside and into cities where ill-prepared. The situation we are 

going to be facing in Yemen. 

And I would say one area that I look forward to consulting with 

both of you is to see if we might be able to help focus the United 

States’ efforts in Gaza. No matter what one thinks about the conflict there, we have almost 2 million people who are in an area that 

the water supply is not going to be, any of it, is going to be fit for 

human consumption within 2 years. And within less than 5 years, 

we think that that condition will become permanent. Maybe this is 

a little area that we could come together to try and deal in a humanitarian sense. 

But let me just stop at this point. The National Intelligence Estimate points out that this is a serious issue of national security. 

You have got some of the best people here. I appreciate your leadership and focus and look forward to being your partner; maybe not 

on the committee, but maybe as an honorary member of your team. 

Thank you so very much. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And it is indeed an honor to join you, Chairman Rohrabacher, and I thank you 

for your leadership on this extremely important issue. 

And, Mr. Blumenauer, it is a delight to be with you again, and 

thank you for your legislation, which did become law, which I think 

is a landmark piece of legislation. It was very bipartisan, but you 

walked point, and I thank you for that extraordinary leadership as 

well. 

Like you, Mr. Chairman, my subcommittee has had and held several hearings on health and water, and it is clear that without adequate supplies of clean drinking water and proper sanitation no 

health programming can succeed. Indeed, the World Health Organization estimates that because of a lack of access to safe drinking 

water and sanitation, more than 14,000 people die daily from 

water-borne illnesses which cause more than 1 billion cases of intestinal worms, 1.4 million child deaths each year from diarrhea, 

860,000 child deaths each year from malnutrition, and 500,000 

deaths from all age groups each year from malaria. 

I note parenthetically that I have introduced legislation that we 

are really pushing hard to enact about neglected tropical diseases, 

and it would really take that whole issue to a new realm of 

prioritization and backing. But, again, without water, and without 

4

trying to address water needs, all of those efforts are stymied. And 

of course, that is integrated into our bill. 

It is troubling that so many people in the world do not have 

ready access to water. The U.N. has estimated 2.6 billion people 

have gained access to safe drinking water over the last 25 years, 

but another 663 million continue to lack access as of this year. 

Nearly half of these people live in Africa, another fifth live in 

South Asia. 

As we know, the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, the 

MDGs, included a target for access to safe drinking water and 

basic sanitation. According to the U.N., global goals for access for 

water are being met, but sanitation continues to be unmet. Of 

course, that is defined as having globally the proportion of people 

who are without sustainable access to safe drinking water and 

basic sanitation. So it is a movement in the right direction, but certainly not an achievement of universal access. Over the past 10 years, the U.S. Government has spent $3.5 billion on water, sanitation, and hygiene, or WASH programming. 

Nevertheless, even after several water acts passed by Congress and 

great international effort to bring countries up to global WASH 

standards, U.S. programming still remains somewhat disjointed. 

According to the GAO study just being concluded, there is no uniform model that has been created for WASH programming. USAID 

was supposed to present a comprehensive plan for WASH programming this year, but none has been released as of this time. 

Even if a model program were to be made adaptable to each 

country, by now there should be some overall strategy for how to 

design a program, monitor its progress, and evaluate its outcomes. 

In too many countries in which USAID operates WASH programs, 

there is no comprehensive program. Monitoring is limited and evaluation fails to adequately assess the statistics being provided by 

host governments. 

The human cost of failure to provide adequate WASH programming is too high to allow substandard programming to continue. 

We will hear that there has been progress made, and this is indeed 

promising, but there is more that must be done. And, again, we 

have the experts here today to provide a road map to our committees as to how we should proceed. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

Now we have three witnesses. I will be introducing the three of 

them. We will have testimony, and then we will have questions and 

answers for all three witnesses at the same time. 

Let me suggest to the witnesses, if you can summarize in 5 minutes, that would be great and give us more time to have a bit of 

a dialogue on this. 

We have three wonderful witnesses, as I say. John Oldfield is the 

CEO of WASH Advocates. And I am trying to guess, you have 

Water and Sanitation Health? 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Hygiene. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Hygiene. 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Hygiene. Health is a good guess, though. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, there we go—WASH advocates, an organization dedicated to increasing the awareness of global WASH 

5

challenges and solutions. Previously, he founded two implementing 

nonprofit organizations and was with the National Academy of 

Sciences, where he researched science and technology policy. 

And next we have from my home county Denis Bilodeau, who is 

the vice president of the Orange County Water District, and was 

elected to his fourth term in 2012. He is a licensed civil and traffic 

engineer, holds a bachelor degree in civil engineering from the University of California at Irvine. 

And let me just note that we in Orange County are proud that 

we have what we believe is the most technologically sophisticated 

and up-to-date water system in the world. And we will let him describe that and the implications of that for these various countries 

that are facing a serious challenge. 

Dale Wittington is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Environmental Science 

and Engineering, and City and Regional Planning. He is a member 

of the Technological Committee on the Global Water Partnership 

and has served as consultant on water and sanitation policies to 

the World Bank, USAID, and numerous other organizations. 

So we have some very, like I say, witnesses that are very impressive with their credentials. 

And may we proceed, Mr. Oldfield? 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN OLDFIELD, CHIEF EXECUTIVE 

OFFICER, WASH ADVOCATES 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was pretty proud of 

my opening remarks here until I heard yours. It is going to be hard 

to beat that. I am gratified that some of the certified smart people 

are up there as well. So thank you for yours. 

Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher, Chairman Smith, Ranking 

Member Meeks, Ranking Member Bass, and distinguished members, Mr. Blumenauer, for the opportunity to provide these brief remarks, which are a summary of my written statement. 

Thank you, before I begin, for your interest and your support for 

safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene programs throughout 

Africa, Asia, and Latin America over the last at least decade. 

I also, before I continue, want to recognize and in fact applaud 

the U.S. civic organizations, religious groups, student clubs, corporations, academics, private philanthropists, nonprofits, and then 

my fellow panelists, my fellow witnesses, who are all working to 

solve this challenge with us today. 

Safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene are about, its most 

simple terms, about the dignity and personal and economic security 

of human beings. A life without WASH is a very difficult one. You 

may remember a situation 2 years ago where two young women 

were raped and murdered in Uttar Predesh, India, raped and murdered on the way to go to the bathroom in a field at night. That 

story actually, I think, helped galvanize Congress to support the 

Water for the World Act that was referenced and to strengthen appropriations language, so thank you again for that. 

And as I was preparing this testimony, I also learned of an extraordinarily sad situation from my friends at Special Olympics in 

Nigeria. A 15-year-old girl with an intellectual disability was raped 

on her way to fetch water from a local river for her school, a state 

6

school for students with intellectual disabilities in southern Nigeria. Now, that girl, a Special Olympics athlete, faces challenges in 

life that most of us can hardly imagine, and a lack of safe drinking 

water should not be one of them. 

In both of these situations there were larger societal challenges 

involved, but if these women had safe drinking water and a private, safe place to go to the bathroom their lives would undoubtedly be or have been more secure and more productive. 

Now, beyond these painful stories, there are hundreds of millions 

of women who spend far too much of their time and far too much 

of their income acquiring, as you have stated, just enough water to 

keep themselves and their families alive, if not actually healthy, on 

a daily basis. In 2015, hundreds of millions of women and girls are 

wasting their lives carrying water. Imagine what would each of us 

do if we had an extra 3 or 4 hours a day, how much more secure 

would we feel, how much more economically productive would we 

be? 

This is solvable. I think all three of you have said that. And Congress has been a key ally for well over a decade here. The Water 

for the Poor Act of 2005, of course, made safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene a priority of U.S. foreign policy. The Water for 

the World Act of 2014 further directs USAID to make WASH investments with the biggest contributions to global public health, 

alongside improved monitoring and evaluation, enhanced accountability, and decentralized ownership. 

This year, House appropriators reasserted congressional intent to 

prioritize WASH and its fundamental contributions to health and 

to the security of the world’s poorest people. The appropriators 

wrote: ‘‘Access to adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene is a critical component of disease prevention, and a lack of access to toilets 

and adequate sanitation impacts women and girls in particular.’’

The global WASH challenge is both an emerging threat and an 

emerging opportunity. For 10 years, Congress and both the Bush 

and the Obama administrations have provided bipartisan support, 

moving WASH efforts to what I considered to be the leading edge 

of foreign assistance reform by focusing on strengthening local capacity and increasing accountability across Africa, Asia, and Latin 

America. 

However, Congress can further improve human and economic security across the developing world and should, A, continue to provide strong oversight of these issues; B, increase the amount, the 

effectiveness, and the targeting of annual appropriations; C, seek 

additional leverage for U.S. taxpayer dollars through additional 

partnerships and innovative finance; D, make WASH a more 

prominent piece of our bilateral relationships with many countries; 

and E, prioritize water and sanitation first of all as an important 

sector in its own right, but secondly, as the foundation of long-lasting progress toward public health, conflict prevention, undernutrition, and economic development. 

Now, years ago an early supporter of the Water for the Poor Act 

that became law in 2005 said: ‘‘It is the human condition that must 

be improved if national security is to be strengthened.’’ You might 

recall that quote. Sitting here today, I see no better way to improve 

the human condition than by providing safe drinking water, sanitiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:24 Oct 27, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00012 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_EEET\090915\96049 SHIRL
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zation, and hygiene to more families and communities across the 

globe. And I and many, many others are grateful for your continuing support. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Oldfield follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Bilodeau. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DENIS BILODEAU, 1ST VICE PRESIDENT, 

ORANGE COUNTY WATER DISTRICT BOARD OF DIRECTORS 

Mr. BILODEAU. Thank you, Chairmen Rohrabacher and Smith 

and members of the subcommittee. I am Denis Bilodeau and I appear before you today as an elected member of the Board of Directors of the Orange County Water District. I am honored to appear 

before you to discuss global water scarcity. I will summarize my 

statement and request that it be submitted into the formal hearing 

record. 

As background, the OCWD is located in the 48th Congressional 

District in Southern California. We provide groundwater to 19 cities and water agencies with a population of 2.4 million. OCWD has 

led the way in developing innovative water solutions across a range 

of technology and infrastructure. 

In the late 1980s, we recognized that to preserve our region’s economic vitality we needed to address groundwater depletion, seawater intrusion, and unreliable surface water supplies. We implemented an aggressive program to develop a water treatment process with our sister agency, which is the Orange County Sanitization District. This is called the Groundwater Replenishment System. This system takes treated wastewater from the Orange County Sanitation District—and when I say treated wastewater, I speak 

of sewage—that would otherwise be discharged into the Pacific 

Ocean. It implements a three-step advanced treatment process that 

consists of microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet light 

with hydrogen peroxide. This treatment and purification process 

produces high-quality water that exceeds all State and Federal 

drinking water standards and delivers enough water to serve 

850,000 people with the production of 100 million gallons a day 

currently. 

When we think about global water supply needs and the ways in 

which to reduce tensions that arise from constrained potable water 

supplies and the ability to share experiences, collaboration is important. OCWD shares its knowledge in advanced water purification technology. 

For example, Singapore enhanced its water security using our experience and expertise. The country of Singapore has been principally reliant on water from Malaysia. With political differences 

between the nations, and the expiration of long-term agreements 

for water transfers between Malaysia and Singapore, the Public 

Utility Board of Singapore was tasked with finding ways to make 

Singapore more water self-sufficient. The Singapore PUB reached 

out to us to learn about technology that our district was using to 

purify wastewater and put it back into the groundwater supplies. 

Water leaders from Singapore visited us to see what we were doing 

to recycle and purify wastewater and to see how we were communicating with the public to bolster public support for potable reuse. 

Working with us, Singapore developed both purified water, which 

they call NEWater, and seawater desalinization to diversify their 

portfolio of available water for sources for the drinking water system, as well as to protect against depletion of their reserves during 

drought or interruption of imported supplies. Singapore also built 

27

a secondary system to enable it to serve high purity water to its 

high-tech customers, such as wafer fabricators and circuit board 

manufacturers that require highly purified water. 

This system of water distribution helped to make Singapore a desirable place for valuable industrial customers and to help locate 

manufacturing facilities. 

In 2014, the Orange County Water District was presented with 

the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize for our efforts toward solving the 

world’s water problems by applying innovative technology solutions. 

We are proud to serve as a global water leader in the water industry, and at the same time it is just a start. Greater investments 

must be made to implement similar projects around the world. We 

must continue to create opportunities for water experts to engage 

with one another and to exchange information to keep pushing the 

envelope and develop new and innovative solutions to global water 

problems. 

The Singapore-Orange County Water District collaboration is an 

example of how American technology transfer can lead to solutions 

for global water supply and quality needs for regions around the 

world. Again, the Orange County Water District greatly appreciates the subcommittee’s decision to explore this important national and international water security matter. Thank you very 

much for having me. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bilodeau follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Whittington. 

STATEMENT OF DALE WHITTINGTON, PH.D., PROFESSOR, 

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Mr. Chairman, just by chance, I just got back 

from 7 weeks in Singapore and had the privilege of seeing these 

facilities that Denis has just described. So everything he is saying 

is true here. I just was at the Lee Kuan Yew School. 

Thank you very much for the invitation to speak today on the 

role of improved water and sanitation services and avoiding conflict 

and building economic prosperity. I would like to make three points 

in my testimony. 

First, there is good news from the public health field. Thanks in 

part to the efforts of the United States and the international community, childhood mortality rates are declining in developing countries and the rate of decline is accelerating. And as we look ahead 

over the next few decades, economic growth should enable East 

Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America to solve their water supply 

and sanitation problems and thankfully water-related mortality 

will be a thing of the past in these regions. The remaining challenges are going be to be in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, 

but even here childhood diarrhea and mortality rates are falling 

rapidly. 

However, the economic benefits from investments in water and 

sanitation infrastructure consist of both health and nonhealth outcomes, and Denis has just described some of the nonhealth outcomes in Singapore. There is a shift occurring in the relative magnitude of these two components with the health benefits declining 

and the nonhealth benefits, such as time savings, increasing. 

The nonhealth related benefits of improved water services vary 

depending on location, but they can be surprisingly large and are 

often increasing. For example, in a recent study conducted in 

Kathmandu, Nepal, researchers at the Institute of Water Policy at 

the National University of Singapore found that from 2001 to 2014 

the real cost after adjusting for inflation that households were incurring coping with water shortages and intermittent contaminated 

supplies actually doubled from $7 a month to $14 a month on average. These coping costs include the value of time spent collecting 

water from outside the home, investments in water storage, inhouse water treatment, and expenditures to water vendors, all of 

which most Americans never experience. 

Investments in improved water services that reduce or eliminate 

these coping costs free up a household’s time, just as John just 

mentioned, and money for other priorities and increase economic 

growth. It is really hard for an urban economy to function efficiently if everyone is worried about getting home from work to 

meet a tanker truck in order to have sufficient water for a week. 

I think that this shift from health to nonhealth benefits has important implications for donor assistance in the WASH sector. In 

places where coping costs are high, one can be confident that the 

economic benefits of improved water supplies will also be very high. 

But the coping costs are not high everywhere, and careful economic 

analysis of water and sanitation infrastructure projects is needed 

to ensure that assistance is targeted to communities where it will 

34

have the greatest economic impact. This will also go a large way 

to reducing conflict. The best way to avoid conflict is for a country 

to get on a high-growth development path. 

My second point is that the world’s population is becoming increasingly urbanized and the largest economic benefits of improved 

water and sanitation infrastructure usually will be in cities in developing countries. So if the objective is to promote economic 

growth, then it is important to prioritize investments in urban 

areas. 

Large economic benefits can be obtained not only from infrastructure investment, but also from policy reforms. Utilities in cities in 

low- and middle-income countries almost always provide water and 

sanitation services to customers far below cost. They rely on subsidies from higher-level governments and donors to pay these subsidies. And recent research has shown that these subsidies are very 

poorly targeted. The majority don’t reach poor households. 

For my third point I want to shift from the economic benefits of 

water and sanitation investments to the relationship between 

water and conflict on international rivers. I know this subcommittee has heard from Paul Sullivan and his testimony on the 

implications of the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia. However, 

I have been studying and writing about the Nile for almost 40 

years, and I would be happy to answer any further questions you 

have about the situation that is emerging on the Nile. I would like 

to just say a few last things and comments on that situation. 

The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam started in 2011 on the Blue Nile near the Ethiopian-Sudanese border. 

It is now about 40 percent complete. When it is finished the Nile 

riparians and the global community will face a new situation in 

transboundary hydropolitics. There will be two very large dams, 

the Aswan High Dam and the GERD, with over-year storage capacity on the same river in different countries in a water-scarce basin, 

and there is presently no plan for coordinating the operation of 

those large storage facilities. 

In my judgment, the Nile riparians need assistance from the 

international community immediately in reaching a fair, equitable 

agreement on the joint operation of the Aswan High Dam and the 

GERD based on best global practices. This is a matter of urgency. 

Ethiopia will likely begin filling the GERD in 2016, just next year. 

So in summary, I have four recommendations. First, in order to 

promote economic growth, assistance in the water supply and sanitation sector should be focused on South Asia and Sub-Saharan African cities. 

Second, if USAID wants water and sanitation investments with 

high economic returns, it should assist countries to do the economic 

analysis to identify where economic returns will be greatest. President Reagan’s Executive Order 12291 required that all major regulations in the United States pass a cost-benefit test. Why not have 

USAID assistance to the water sector pass a similar test? 

Third, the United States Agency for International Development’s 

global water coordinator and the Department of State’s special advisor for water resources should give high priority to the reform of 

municipal water pricing and tariffs in developing countries and to 

improve the targeting of available subsidies to poor households. 

35

And finally, fourth, the United States Department of State 

should encourage international organizations such as the World 

Bank to reengage in the Nile mission. As I said, this is a matter 

of urgency for the international community. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Whittington follows:]

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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. 

We have been joined by Dan Donovan. 

Do you have any opening statement that you would like to make 

before we go into some questions? 

Mr. DONOVAN. No, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right, thank you. 

Just I will proceed with my time period here. First of all, about 

Orange County, I bring people in from all over the world. I must 

have in the last 10 years brought in 20 or 30 different groups of 

people from foreign countries to see the operation that is going 

down there. And it is based on, yes, two elements. One is a new 

technology with this membrane technology being developed to the 

utmost, but also it deals with the cooperation of various levels of 

government. And as you say, the sanitation department and the 

water district, I don’t know if sanitation and water districts get 

along in other places, but from what I understand, sometimes it is 

hard for one department of government to talk to the other department of government, whether it is Federal, State, or local. 

But just as they are doing that, we need to make sure that at 

the Federal level we are cooperating between the various departments and agencies that can have an impact on this issue. 

And I have already drawn attention to the fact that when you 

have so many people who are facing a future of billions people 

without—or a billion people—without clean water, that is a volatile 

situation where people are seeing their families die, and thus undermine the security and the tranquillity of whatever area that is 

going on in. For all we know, and I haven’t looked at it yet, but 

I would hope to find out about it, that some of these refugees that 

are pouring into Europe right now and creating an enormous chaos 

that Europe just has not been used to, I would say that there probably is a water connection there, and several witnesses have alluded to that. 

So when our European friends talk about what can be done to 

help prevent that, number one, let’s make sure people aren’t watching their children die of some disease that wouldn’t be there if they 

had clean water, and thus they don’t feel compelled about taking 

their entire family and going to Europe where they think they can 

get clean water. 

Let me ask this. Has there been an assessment? We were talking 

about trying to have some kind of real assessment as to how effective a program is. Is this lacking? Maybe you could go into a little 

more detail on that. 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. It is hard to do economic analysis of water 

projects because it is difficult to measure all of these benefits. At 

the same time, I think we have to try. I mean, the World Bank 

does it. The Inter-American Development Bank does it. And I think 

USAID can do it too. 

Warren Buffett doesn’t get high returns on capital just by 

chance. I mean, he does the economic analysis to figure that out. 

And I think it is the same in the water sector. I mean, there are 

lots of good investments everywhere, but we should be focusing our 

taxpayer dollars on those investments with the highest economic 

returns, and you have to do the economic analysis to figure that 

out. 

43

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And one question for the panel just very 

quickly. We had the example of Singapore, where you have this 

huge number of people with a very limited amount of water, and 

now it is clean water and they are prospering. Is this an urban 

challenge or are we talking about more of a development challenge 

in terms of clean water? Just go down the row there. 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a fair question. We have read the demographic data, 51 percent of the world 

now lives in cities and urban and peri-urban or informal settlement 

environments. So I would certainly second Dr. Whittington’s suggestion to focus on cities to a certain extent. 

But the data also shows that 70 to 75 percent of the remaining 

problem, 70 to 75 percent of the 663 million people without access 

to safe drinking water, the 2.4 billion people without a private, safe 

place to go to the bathroom, are in rural communities. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Could you please repeat that statistic that 

you just gave us? 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Seventy to seventy-five percent of the remaining 

need for safe drinking water and sanitation across the developing 

world is in rural communities, across Africa, across Asia, and 

across Latin America. 

Now, that is changing. People are migrating to cities and informal settlements around cities and so on. So the need is pervasive 

everywhere. 

I think what ties this all together is what I think the three of 

you said in your opening statements: We know how to solve this. 

And regardless if it is urban, peri-urban, or rural villages, in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, we know how to solve these problems, 

they now how to solve these problems, and they need to be solved 

in a fashion that is both appropriate in technical terms, in financial 

terms, and in sociocultural terms, and these problems need to be 

solved in a fashion that is resilient, that is going to build systems 

that are able to withstand population shifts, droughts, floods, and 

so on. 

So the systems, whether it is urban, peri-urban, or rural, need 

to be both appropriate in a number of terms, a number of facets 

of appropriate and resilient. 

Mr. BILODEAU. In terms of the Orange County experience, the 

technology we are using is primarily applicable to urbanized areas 

because you need to have a central collection point for the wastewater. Then you can then harvest and reuse that water and deliver 

it back out to your customers. So it wouldn’t be so applicable in 

sparsely populated areas, but definitely for urbanized areas. And 

our type of system would go hand in hand in terms of development 

of a sewage collection system, as well as a recycling system along 

with that. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So what you have got is sanitation and clean 

water, again——

Mr. BILODEAU. Combined. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER [continuing]. The importance of putting those 

two together. 

Mr. BILODEAU. Yes, developing those in conjunction. 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. So I agree with John that there are huge 

problems in rural areas, but I think that there is a tension between 

44

humanitarian aid and pro-growth economic aid. I am not arguing 

to do less in rural areas. I just want to focus also on urban areas 

because that is where the economic benefits and the real chance to 

move economies to a high growth dynamic trajectory is. 

And so as people move from rural areas into cities, there is a 

package of infrastructure investments that are critical to getting 

economic growth moving, and they include telecommunications and 

roads and health and education. 

And water is a critical component. Piped water services in urban 

areas are what people want. People in developing countries are just 

like you. They want 24/7 water that is potable, that they can drink. 

And this is feasible. And it is not only feasible from a humanitarian point of view, it is the right thing to do from an economic 

development perspective. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And of course the cleaner water in the urban 

area, the less money has to be spent for taking care of people’s 

health problem, and investment in the water would negate some of 

that cost. 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, all three, for your very, very expert and informative 

presentations. 

Let me just ask, Dr. Whittington, you have made four recommendations. Thank you for those. I think they are right on the 

money and in terms of things we should be doing. 

When you talk about the GERD and the Aswan High Dam and 

the status of the negotiations, my question is, what might a prudent agreement look like? I mean, the time seems to be, you know, 

coming and quickly passing. I mean, as you pointed out, filling of 

the dam might begin as early as 2016. 

You talk about the U.S. Department of State should increase its 

diplomatic efforts. What is it doing? How engaged are we? How 

would you rate it? Is it enough? Is it something we should invite 

State and USAID to be here to give us some insights and then we 

could prod them along to try to make this much more serious? 

The GAO study has said USAID WASH interventions don’t cover 

large water issues such as dams, as you know. So if you could just 

give some information or some guidance along those lines. 

With regards to sanitation, perhaps one of you, Mr. Oldfield, perhaps you, might want to provide insights and recommendations as 

to why the international community has failed to meet the MDG 

targets for sanitation. And even meeting those targets for the accessibility to clean and safe water, yeah, we are talking about having the number of those who don’t have access, and that still leaves 

us, as you know, with over 663 million people who have lacked access to safe water. So it is a step in the right direction, but it is 

certainly not the achievement of the hope is, which would be universal access. But why is sanitation a laggard? 

And let me also ask, in Africa, if it accelerates, as it is, its march 

to electrification, the Power Africa and other initiatives, how 

should these emerging economies integrate best practices? And perhaps our friend from Orange County might speak to that. 

45

As you mentioned Mr. Chairman, you have invited delegations 

from other countries to go and witness what they are doing to 

share that best practice. 

But, I mean, is our government integrating the experts in the 

field like yourself so that, you know, Nigeria, Ethiopia, name the 

country, you know, can say: Why reinvent the wheel? This has 

been perfected to the point, and now that we have access to electricity that we hadn’t had before, that state-of-the-art sanitation 

can be deployed in a way that provides for safety and efficacy of 

the whole operation. 

So if you could speak to that because it seems to me we have 

written the book on this. We have done this on a whole lot of other 

issues. We have learned from others, but we also as a country, and 

I think Europe can say the same thing, has much to share. But if 

we are not actively integrating that sharing process—you are—but, 

you know, can it be accelerated, should it be accelerated, and if you 

could speak to that. 

Mr. BILODEAU. Okay, I will go first. 

In terms of our experience, we are fortunate that we have very 

highly qualified engineering companies, private companies, that actually designed and built our facilities for us. The companies are 

multinational, so they, of course, can go to Singapore, or there is 

another plant similar to Singapore’s in Kuwait that General Electric actually built there and operates it currently. 

So in terms of exporting the technology, it is really the American 

corporations that are leading the way and that have the engineering skill and know-how in terms of the design and the construction. 

In terms of at our facility, one thing that we have lended our expertise to is we do a lot of pilot testing of new technologies. There 

is a new technology called graphene that is in research and development right now that may revolutionize reverse osmosis membranes and bring the cost of reverse osmosis treatment down substantially. And so that is something we are working with Lockheed 

currently in bench testing basically, their innovation and trying to 

bring the cost of treating this water down, which, of course, will 

help to export this technology around the world, and for other applications around the world. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Oldfield. 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Great. Thank you for that question, Mr. Chairman, about sanitation and the MDGs. 

There is no easy answer to why the world missed by such a significant amount the Millennium Development Goal for sanitation. 

I will try in about 10 seconds here. Lack of political will, not just 

in this country, certainly not just in this country, but more importantly in developing countries, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, 

simply a lack of political prioritization, and a lack of financial resources primarily from developing countries for sanitation. 

And then in some places where these things did come together, 

I would use India as an example that made a significant commitment to sanitation throughout 2000 to 2015, there was an imbalance between hardware and software. They built a whole lot of toilets and didn’t do the behavior change. They built a lot of hardware 

and didn’t have a lot of software to back that up. So all of a sudden 

46

not just in India, but in many other parts of the world you have 

toilets used for unintended purposes. 

If I might take 10 seconds to address the flip side of that, which 

is how we are going to address the Sustainable Development Goals 

commitment to universal coverage of sanitation by 2030. It is exactly the opposite. Increased political commitment and 

prioritization for sanitation, appropriate sanitation solutions, so 

that all 7-plus billion of us have a place to go to the bathroom on 

the planet. Political leaders—and I don’t mean sanitation ministers 

or water ministers, I mean prime ministers, finance ministers, 

heads of state, and heads of government—need to prioritize this, 

and that is something that we are trying to work on an a bit. And 

therefore, increased financial support for sanitation primarily from 

developing countries themselves. 

There are a lot of efforts within USAID and up on Capitol Hill 

to figure out how to best address this concept of domestic resource 

mobilization, DRM. How can we help mobilize more public and private resources for development challenges, including sanitation, not 

from this country, not from the international donor community, but 

from developing countries themselves? 

So more political will, more particularly public sector finance. I 

think we need to redress this imbalance around the world between 

hardware and software. We need to focus on changing behavior, on 

changing minds, then the hardware problems will solve themselves, 

I think. If everybody wants a toilet, the public or the private sector 

is going to come up with a way to make sure that every single one 

of those people has a toilet. 

And then lastly, echoing your concerns, I haven’t seen anything 

about this GAO audit yet, but from what you have shared with us 

very briefly, I think I would agree with their concerns. What I 

would like to see, not just in the sanitation space but in the entire 

WASH space, is Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network principles of foreign assistance reform, increased accountability, increased capacity, decentralized ownership, and increased transparency throughout our foreign assistance. 

Mr. SMITH. On that point, do you believe the political will is 

emerging, is there, perhaps, to have universal access to adequate 

sanitation by 2030, facilitated in the post-2015 goals? 

Mr. OLDFIELD. I do, whether you mean in the developed world 

or in the developing world. I mean, this hearing is a manifestation 

of increased political will for sanitation in developing countries 

from the United States as one member of the international donor 

community. The Dutch Government is doing a fantastic job with 

this, the British Government, the German Government. We have 

a lot of allies in our renewed focus on sanitation. 

But, again, more importantly than that, we are seeing a lot of 

increased efforts to prioritize sanitation in developing countries. 

And the one example I would give you is Prime Minister Narenda 

Modi’s commitment to Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, the Clean India 

campaign. 

A year ago, he committed to universal coverage of sanitation in 

India by October 2, 2019, Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birthday. He 

is committed to ending open defecation and providing a toilet and 

making sure it is used for its intended purpose to all of India’s 1.25 

47

billion citizens within a very, very short period of time, one example of heightened political will. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Doctor. 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. So I will go back to your questions about the 

Nile, and I think there were two: What would an agreement look 

like and what is the State Department doing? They are both great 

questions. 

What would an agreement look like? If you go to the MurrayDarling in Australia or you go to the Colorado where you have 

large over-year storage facilities on big rivers in water-scarce areas, 

those agreements are hundreds of pages long. And so the first 

thing is this is not an easy task. I mean, somebody has to actually 

write these agreements and negotiate these agreements and that 

takes time and it needs to start very quickly. 

Technically, what has to happen in the agreement is that Ethiopia is going to be filling the GERD Reservoir, but they have got 

to pass enough water down to Sudan and Egypt during that time 

so that those countries can meet their essential needs. Egypt has 

the Aswan High Dam, so they can buffer this a little bit if they 

have storage in the High Dam. Sudan does not. There is no overyear storage in Sudan. So there has to be enough water passed to 

meet the essential needs of Egypt and Sudan during the filling. 

But more importantly, in the long run, there needs to be coordinated management on the droughts, because that is where the real 

conflict could come, if Ethiopia wants to hold back water on the 

droughts, and that water is really needed downstream in Sudan 

and Egypt. 

So this is not hard to do technically, but it has to be negotiated. 

And so the key point on the agreement that we are missing right 

now, we don’t have an agreement, but we also need a trustworthy, 

binding arbitrator, and that is where I think the global community 

can come in. 

I would say that the State Department is active. They are in 

Salzburg. The special advisor on water has been working hard. But 

I think the visibility of this issue really needs to rise. There has 

not been a coordinated international response on this. It is not just 

a U.S. concern. It is a concern for Europe and the World Bank. The 

World Bank has moved back from the Nile, they are not as engaged 

as they were in the past, and I think this has to change. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Just one thought before we go to Mr. 

Blumenauer. Cairo, Egypt, do we know how many times it reuses 

its water? I don’t. In many of these countries that we are talking 

about, they don’t reuse it at all. They just use it once and it goes 

into the ocean. In Orange County, California, how many times do 

we reuse our water and clean it and reuse it and clean it and reuse 

it before it goes back into the ocean? 

Mr. BILODEAU. Well, now it is infinite. It is dozens of times we 

continually reprocess the water that comes to us. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So at least 9, 10 times we are reusing that 

water. We are purifying it again and then reusing it. And in countries like Egypt on the edge of a desert, this could mean everything, and especially if you end up with a war or something beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:24 Oct 27, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_EEET\090915\96049 SHIRL
48

tween someone upstream and downstream as compared to just 

making sure the water you are using, you reuse it over and over 

again. 

Mr. Blumenauer. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. And, again, I appreciate the courtesy in permitting me to join the panel. 

Dr. Whittington, you mentioned coping costs and cited a study in 

Nepal, Kathmandu, where they have doubled to being $14 per——

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Per household per month. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Per household per month, in a nation with a 

per capita income per household——

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Yes, you have got me there, I think——

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Six hundred dollars, $800? 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. Yeah, it is around $1,000, I think. I would 

have to check, you know. It is a good question. I mean, these may 

not seem like big numbers to you, but for poor people in developing 

countries these are high costs. And when households save this 

money, and as John said, save the time, these can be put to more 

productive uses and start a country on a path to, you know, economic growth. 

But it is really hard to do that if you are spending all of your 

time, you know, scrambling around a big city trying to figure out 

how to get water for your family. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. But it struck me, that seems like a very high 

number to me, thinking about what happens in these developing 

countries. And it raises the point, I think we are looking at, the 

number I have heard quoted, 155 million hours a day is spent by 

women and girls, often, as Mr. Oldfield points out, putting themselves at risk, to secure water for the families, often dirty water. 

They end up in many developing countries paying a huge amount 

of their disposable income, to say nothing of money that is not 

being spent. 

I am wondering if you, Doctor, or actually any of the members 

of the panel would care to comment on our capacity to actually selffund much of what needs to be done if we are able to get an early 

intervention, maybe help a little bit of capital expenditure, help a 

little bit with the planning and development, and as our chairman 

says, where there are some pretty fundamental areas of savings 

that aren’t being employed. You want to talk about the potential 

of self-funding this? 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. It is a great question, and actually Water.org 

is doing just this right now with microfinancing water projects in 

developing countries. So they are putting money into communities 

that are borrowing and then repaying those loans to get sustainable high-quality water and sanitation services. So I think your 

point is exactly right. Where coping costs are high, and those savings are real, you know, in dollars and time, there are great opportunities for self-financing water and sanitation projects. 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Yeah. If I might add 30 seconds to that, I would 

ask you to consider taking a look at USAID’s recent ‘‘Safeguarding 

the World’s Water’’ report. I was looking at it in preparing for this 

hearing, looking for success stories of how water contributes to economic prosperity. 

49

I would highlight that the partnerships office of the Development 

Innovation Ventures team at USAID has recently provided financial support to a group called Sanergy. It is the sort of front-end 

catalytic financial support that you are talking about, Mr. 

Blumenauer. And Sanergy then takes these funds, franchises toilets to entrepreneurs outside of Kenya who collect the waste, turn 

it into organic natural fertilizer, and make a profit—I think it is 

per toilet—of up to 2,000 U.S. a year, and several of these entrepreneurs have much more than one toilet. So it is a real business 

opportunity. 

I would highlight USAID’s SUWASA, the Sustainable Water and 

Sanitation in Africa Program, as well, which is not just focused on 

one technology or one business or financial model, but doing what 

it can to promote various commercial solutions and financial stability. 

It is the sort of, I won’t get into too much detail on this right 

now, but it is the sort of, I think, catalytic front-end financial and 

technical assistance that the U.S. taxpayer, through its trustees, 

through their trustees, and through USAID, should be providing. 

We should be first in, not last out. We should be the catalyst, not 

the one running around with the used drilling rig drilling wells. 

That is my take. I think we get a much bigger bang for the taxpayer dollar with programs like that. 

Mr. BILODEAU. Yes. And briefly, I agree with Mr. Oldfield in 

that. USAID has led the way in terms of international financing. 

In our case, our entire program has cost $600 million to build. 

Much of that was financed by ourselves and some help from the 

State of California, and also we have received $20 million from the 

Title XVI Program. 

But we provide water for 850,000 people now with our system, 

and so you can understand the economies of scale there and the 

metrics. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Thank you. It is part of what we have attempted to do in the more recent reform legislation, is to focus on 

investments that the United States is involved with that are more 

sustainable, not using inappropriate technology or getting people 

started and then they don’t have the wherewithal to continue with 

it. 

Mr. Chairman, I would hope that as a result of some of this conversation there would be an opportunity to do a little deeper analysis of what we can do on the ground to help provide the foundation, because done right, it seems to me clear the evidence is that 

we can have programs that are actually affordable if they get over 

that initial hurdle in terms of understanding the technology, maybe 

having a little upfront financing, maybe not even grants, but financing, that there is enough money involved with some of these 

really in some cases tragic conditions that we could make a big difference. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We do plan a second and probably third hearing on this issue in which we will be covering exactly the type of 

areas you are suggesting. 

Mr. BLUMENAUER. Great. Thank you very much. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And now we have Mr. Dan Donovan. 

50

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am the newest member of this committee. I have been in Congress for 4 months. I don’t 

want you to get confused. This is my first time sitting on the upper 

tier. I am usually down there by where it says ‘‘staff only.’’ So this 

is my first exposure——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Don’t get used to it. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you, Chairman. 

This is my first exposure to your expertise to the probing questions of my colleagues. My understanding of the issue is just what 

I have read over the years. So my limited understanding and it is 

more general is that the problem is caused by droughts, it is 

caused by having adequate water but it is not safe water, there is 

safe water that is adequate for people but there is not infrastructure to get it to people. It is regimes or governments who have adequate water and infrastructure but won’t allow their people access 

to it. 

Are these the problems that you are facing, that these countries 

that you are talking about are facing, and is our country doing its 

share or enough to help? To anyone. 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Well, thank you, Mr. Donovan. I think the easy 

answer to your question is yes. It is all of the above. Name a challenge associated with safe drinking water, sanitation, or hygiene, 

and people are facing it. Sometimes it is a lack of water. 

But I guess I would quote an academic named Hans Rosling who 

said: The biggest environmental challenge on the planet today is 

that 1 billion people are drinking their neighbor’s lukewarm feces. 

These people are not dying of thirst, they are dying of shit in the 

water. They are drinking each other’s feces. And that is what is 

killing 500,000 children minimum each year. 

The key, the flip side of your question is that this is solvable. 

The folks at this table, the folks up on the dais there understand 

how to solve this problem. I believe that the U.S. Government is 

doing a lot. I think you heard a figure of $3.5 billion for water and 

sanitation programs over the last 10, 12 years. That is a lot. 

I personally am up here to advocate that we can do not just 

more, but that we can do better by addressing some of the concerns 

that Chairman Smith brought up earlier about how to build local 

capacity, how to decentralize ownership, how to make sure that we 

are actually working ourselves out of a job, not creating further dependencies in Africa, in Asia, and Latin America. And I would be 

happy in your first year here to spend some more time with you 

or your staff on this to bring you up to speed. And I would also direct you to Mr. Blumenauer’s office and to Mr. Poe’s office, who 

were the key sponsors of the Water for the World Act last year. 

Mr. DONOVAN. Thank you. 

Mr. BILODEAU. Yes. And briefly, as he mentioned, the key is that 

many of these areas are lacking the proper sanitation facilities. 

The sanitation facility is essentially the river. And if we could help 

developing countries develop proper sanitation facilities in concert 

with water reuse facilities, it solves two problems simultaneously. 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I will just tell you about a puzzle that we 

have in the sector. We have a lot of nonpipe technologies that work 

and are cheap, they are effective, and they save lives. But household demand for these services is often low. And on the other hand, 

51

household demand for pipe services, 24/7 water supply, bottled 

water, like you have got, is very high. But the problem is these are 

very expensive and they are very capital intensive. 

So those are the two kind of things that we wrestle with in this 

sector. And it gets back to this issue of financing. How do we finance improved pipe systems for urban areas to promote growth 

and dynamic economies? I mean, that to me is one of the real challenges we face. We know how to save lives, and we should do it, 

with cheap, cost-effective technologies. But people want more than 

that, and they want economic growth, and they want the convenience of piped water in their homes. And so that is the challenge 

that we struggle with in this sector—one of the challenges we 

struggle with. 

The other thing I would say about struggling, water problems are 

local and solving them requires local capacity, local institutions, 

and local expertise. So one of the challenges we have got is building 

local capacity, building local institutions, because the solutions are 

not the same everywhere. So it is an educational task that we have 

got, an institutional building task, and we all know those are really 

hard. 

Mr. DONOVAN. I thank you all for your enlightenment. 

I yield the rest of my time, Chairman. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. And last but not least, Mr. Clawson. 

Mr. CLAWSON. Thank you for coming today. I have got two questions or comments that I would like you all to respond to, so I will 

throw them out one at a time. 

So my district is—the southern tip is Marco Island. I have got 

the west tip of the Everglades, go up north along the coast, Naples, 

Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Cabbage Key, great place. I think I 

have got the best district of all—wonderful, welcoming people, and 

I love it there. That is another conversation. 

I am always concerned about diseases from mosquitos that come 

from water because we don’t do well with drainage and pooling. 

And I am worried about that personally because I see chikungunya 

right around the corner. I see dengue fever right around the corner. 

It is all over the Caribbean, as far south as Brazil. And it just feels 

like it is knocking on our door and it is just a question of time. 

And I am always worried about how we do with—you know, 

when I drive around my district, I am looking at a lot of pooling 

water and I compare that to the developing world where they don’t 

do anything, particularly if it is a bad rainy season. And then you 

have 10 percent of the population of the world gets dengue fever; 

chikungunya is blowing up everywhere. We have this conversation 

today and until now I don’t think anybody has even brought it up. 

And I think of Southeast Asia and the rainy seasons there, and 

India. And, look, I am all with you on toilets and wells, but it feels 

like the global conversation about water sanitation and usability is 

behind the curve with respect to mosquitos because we beat malaria, which is a nocturnal, rural problem, and now we have 

chikungunya and dengue fever which is an urban, daytime problem. 

So that is number one. Do we, as a country and as a globe, do 

we do any work on that? 

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The second thing is to Mr. Oldfield’s comments, my experience in 

development in South America and Southeast Asia is that if folks 

are at risk a little bit, skin in the game—on the well or on the toilet, the septic system—however basic it is, that they tend to keep 

it up more. And that a lot of the 500,000 that are dying every 

year—I am a lot more open-minded to spending taxpayer money if 

the end user has skin in the game. 

And that is not a conservative’s way of saying I don’t want to 

help, because we have all spent a big chunk of our life trying to 

help. But if the model makes everyone in the supply chain have 

skin in the game, then I think what I have seen is that we have 

better usage of the money. 

So I would just ask you all’s quick response to my two comments. 

First of all, if you think I am all wet on the mosquito thing, just 

tell me right up. And then, Mr. Oldfield, you can comment on the 

other one. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I don’t think all wet was what you really, 

wet. 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I don’t think you are all wet on dengue. I 

think it is a serious concern. I would say that there has been rapid 

progress on a dengue vaccine and I would get ready to use it. You 

need to be ready to deploy that in your district when it is——

Mr. CLAWSON. I am really glad you—look, Dr. Whittington, if you 

ever have time for a conference call with my team we would love 

to hear it. I read a year or 2 ago that they are working on a vaccine 

in Singapore or in Asia somewhere. I assume it is from outside the 

U.S. Is that right? 

Mr. WHITTINGTON. It is outside the U.S. The International Vaccine Institute in Seoul has made great progress on this and some 

of the pharmaceuticals. And so I would be happy to talk to you 

about——

Mr. CLAWSON. And does it work on all four strains of dengue 

fever or——

Mr. WHITTINGTON. You have got me on that. But they are very 

happy about the preliminary results from the trials on this. So that 

is something that I would get ready to use. 

Mr. CLAWSON. We are very interested because we see ourselves 

right behind the Keys in terms of——

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I just mentioned I got back from Singapore, 

and they are monitoring very closely dengue cases when they pop 

up, they send people in to figure out where it came from, and they 

are really trying hard to stay on top of mosquito control. But I 

think your concern is exactly right. I mean, this is a real risk. 

Mr. CLAWSON. Yeah. My guys tell me the type of mosquito that 

spreads dengue is there, but the infection is not yet in south Florida. So it just feels like a question of time before we, and I am 

going to be dealing with this, and if we can see it coming——

Mr. WHITTINGTON. I think you are right. 

So your second point was about wells and skin in the game, and 

I also agree completely with you on that point, and it relates back 

on the other question about financing and microfinancing, getting 

people to pay for these services as well. 

I would say that from our perspective competition in this business is useful. And one of the great advances, one of the best things 

53

that has happened in Sub-Saharan Africa in the last couple decades in the WASH sector has actually been the presence of Chinese 

contractors competing for contracts in the rural water sector, and 

they really halve the price of wells. 

So the price of drilling wells, in old technology, you know, we 

have been having wells around for 5,000 years, but the Chinese 

contractors have come and competed in a market-based system for 

those contracts to drill wells in rural areas and have won contracts 

and cut the price in half. So there is a market in this business 

that——

Mr. CLAWSON. My experience in this is that when we do the financial calculation, the return, either a net present value or IRR, 

we leave out the cost avoidance of hepatitis C or the other things 

that bad toilets cause, and therefore developing countries understate the return on investment for proper sanitation. Am I right 

about that? Mr. Oldfield maybe? 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Well, I think that is right, and I would just add 

time savings to that. Once you factor in the 3, 4, 6 hours a day that 

a lot of these women around Africa, Asia, and Latin America spend 

hauling water contaminated with human feces on their heads, pretty much every WASH project is financially viable. And I know that 

doesn’t satisfy you from an NPV or an IRR perspective, but it 

needs to be factored in there. 

Mr. CLAWSON. No, I think if you take cost avoidance in—no, I 

disagree. I mean, I think if you take cost avoidance in and the cost 

of ringworm and everything else that goes with bad water—I mean, 

I am conservative, but I am right with you all on that. I mean, I 

think the financial models, if we take all aspects into account—first 

of all, saving people’s lives, which is always more important—then 

I am right with you. But I think that if we ignore the cost avoidance and if we leave the end user out of the risk stream, then we 

come up with corruption and other problems. 

Do you agree with me on that, Mr. Oldfield? 

Mr. OLDFIELD. Well, I do. I think you are on the right track here. 

And I am constantly looking for more ways to justify, my job is to 

encourage Americans, both public and private, to do more and better in tackling the world’s WASH challenge, water, sanitation, and 

hygiene. One of our key messages is that every dollar invested in 

WASH provides a $4 return, according to the World Health Organization, and that $4 in return, it is not a financial return, it is barely an economic return. What it is, it is a social return. 

Most of that comes from increased—well, I guess it is economic 

ROI—increased economic productivity because of extra hours in 

your day. But a significant percentage of that 4-1 ROI does come 

from decreased healthcare costs as well. 

It is not an emerging field, but there is new research coming out 

on this all the time because it is, exactly as you said, it is awfully 

difficult to quantify precisely. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would like to thank our witnesses today. 

This is, again, a second in a series of hearings that we will have 

on water. And some of the areas that have been outlined by Mr. 

Blumenauer we are going to be looking at. And we want to—I 

think that we have really opened up an area of discussion on policy 

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that could be of great value and accomplish some things in a very 

cost-effective way. 

So I want to thank you for helping start this dialogue on water, 

and we will continue in the next hearing, but this one is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the subcommittees were adjourned.] 

(55)

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