By Giff Johnson
For Variety

MAJURO — In response to a worsening fresh water shortage in the Marshall Islands, the government’s national disaster committee has asked the cabinet to declare an emergency that will release disaster aid funding to improve the public’s access to water. But there was no indication of how quickly top government leaders will act on the disaster aid request.
“We can’t use the (disaster) money until we have authority,” said Justina Langidrik, the government’s acting chief secretary. If the cabinet approves it, “then we can activate the disaster management system,” she said.
This includes turning on two reverse osmosis water making machines now sitting idle in two urban areas of the capital city of Majuro, where about half of the country’s 60,000 population lives, and delivering fresh water by ship to remote northern islands facing a worse water crisis than Majuro.
As of Wednesday, Majuro’s reservoir was down to 7.5 million gallons of water — less than a seven-day supply at current use levels — its lowest level since the late 1990s. “If we get to five million gallons, then we’ll reduce water hours to one day a week,” said Majuro Water and Sewer Company manager Terry Mellan. City water is currently limited to just two days per week, on Monday and Friday mornings and evenings.
Both Langidrik and Mellan said they need Cabinet-authorization to dispatch water shipments to remote islands, and begin operating the reverse osmosis water making equipment to distribute free water supplies to the community in Majuro. “Once we have approval, we will provide up to five gallons per day per person (at the two reverse osmosis water making equipment locations),” Mellan said. These units take brackish ground well water and filter it into clean drinking water.
The government’s patrol boat, normally used for fisheries surveillance, is standing by to deliver large water containers to remote atolls be filled from an on-board water maker, Langidrik said.
The president’s office didn’t know how quickly the disaster declaration request would be brought to cabinet. “There was a paper from the disaster committee and it’s going through the comment and review process,” president’s office spokesman Bob Jericho said Wednesday. “I do not have information as to when it will come before the cabinet.”
Fresh water supplies have dwindled since January with the El Niño weather phenomenon causing an extended drought for a country that depends on rain for about 95 percent of its fresh water. “We’re not doing our laundry in-house anymore,” said William Weza, general manager of the Marshall Islands Resort, the largest hotel in the country.
While Majuro received nearly five inches of rain in February — close to the average for month— the first two weeks of March has produced less than half an inch of rain for the capital. But if the 30,000 residents of Majuro think they lack rain, it’s nothing compared to what more remote, northern latitude islands are experiencing. Utrik Atoll, according to Majuro Weather Station, has received virtually no rain for the past six weeks, and island residents are now being forced to use ground well water for drinking.
Langidrik confirmed that she is receiving reports from many outer islands experiencing severe water shortages.
“The Climate Prediction Center says that El Niño is gone,” said Reginald
White, director of the Majuro Weather Station. “We’re in a transition period that may possibly move to La Niña.”
The problem is that the transition period translates into a “worst case scenario” that means little to no rain in islands seven degrees and above, said White. This includes Majuro and Kwajalein, the two urban centers, and about a dozen other inhabited atolls. The transition period is expected to last until about May, with higher than normal rainfall anticipated after that point, because La Niña results in heavy rains here, according to White.
El Niño warms the ocean seawater in the Western Pacific, causing droughts as rain clouds evaporate, while La Niña swings the temperature the other direction, bringing heavy rains.