Pricey prospect for pipe dreams

The rectangular glass walls of Fathi Chatila’s office inHamra make visitors feel much like they are in an aquarium without water; perhaps that is appropriate for a hydro-geologist concerned with Lebanon’swater woes. Chatila, also the editor-in-chief of Arab Water World magazine, has been leading a campaign aimed at changing the heavily-indebted Lebanese government’s expensive water ways since 1996. His efforts thus far have been somewhat in vain; since the 1970s, the focus in upgrading Lebanon’s decrepit water infrastructure has been on large-scale projects that require more long-term funding, not less. For a fiscally stable country this is a viable option, but Lebanon is anything but; it currently maintains a public debt around one-and-a-half times its annual economic output. The country loses 1.8 percent of its gross domestic product — or around $433 million — per year from the cost of inaction on water infrastructure, according to the World Bank. That