These displays were set up 1950s during the USSR period to show how Communism could defy natural principles and make the desert bloom, with enough water left over to use on fountains and beautiful trees and gardens. It's said that water quality in Tashkent is so bad that purified drinking water is used to water the city's plants. However, underground fresh water lenses have become the primary source of drinking water in all of Turkmenistan. Hepatitis epidemics break out when people drink out of the Canal. There are no chlorination holding tanks for large wells at kolkhozes.
Demineralization is the number one problem in treatment.
There are very few point sources of water contaminants in Turkmenistan. Researchers are currently trying to determine transport mechanisms of those that do exist. Contaminant levels fluctuate widely both areally and temporally. Sudden increases in mercury, cadmium and lead are observed in the spring at the mouth of the Kara Kum Canal, then drop as the summer wears on. Mining operations in the mountains from which the Amu Darya flows out onto the desert are the probable sources for the heavy metal contamination, especially with the spring snowmelt contributing to higher stream flow at that time.