HAWIJA, Iraq (June 30, 2006) " Piles of trash and litter, the scourge of many Iraqi cities, is being removed by local workers from the street and alleys of Hawija, Iraq.
Sanitation has been a continual concern for Coalition Forces and the Iraqi leadership. The street cleaning project currently cleans the busiest streets, but will soon move to residential areas. The project employs many civilians.
"This was a good project because there are a lot of poor people that need jobs and this provides them with work," said Hussein Allawy Jathel, the mayor of Habasy, one of the cities coordinating the project.
Each city has approximately 20 workers as well as truck drivers and managers. The project started about a month ago.
"Right now there are four cities in the project," said Capt. Eric Canaday, B company commander, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. "We start with the larger towns, and as those are cleaned up and the funding becomes available for more cities, we'll keep moving out to more cities."
The projects also should help combat health concerns caused by the waste in the streets.
"These are the kind of projects that the city council and provincial council will have to work on by going into each city as they can and improving the sanitation," explained Canaday. "They've identified the problem and they are going to fix it, it just a matter of priority in which city they get to."
The project is currently funded by Coalition Forces, but will soon be handled by Iraqi government.
"We hope as we leave that funding will be given over to the city council so they will continue to run this project on their own without any coalition assistance," said Canaday.
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