On July 9, Blumont’s Building Foundations team in Gaza welcomed USAID officials for a site visit of three reservoirs and the main transmission pipeline included in the Yatta Distribution Network Rehabilitation and Extension Project—the first Task Order under Building Foundations.
The USAID officials—CORs Sonia Massis and Rami Kteish and USAID Gaza Coordinator Daniel Morris—had requested the visit to see Blumont’s progress on the Task Order and to meet with Blumont Engineering Solutions (BES) staff. While there, the BES team gave them a warm welcome and showed them around the site.
Mr. Morris pointed to BES’s outstanding standards adopted for the implementation of the Yatta project, as well as the Gaza Desalination Project under the USAID-funded Infrastructure Needs Program II. He especially praised BES’s high safety and quality measurements and standards implemented by BES to USAID’s requirements and specifications.
In addition, Mr. Morris commended the BES team in overcoming difficulties in bringing materials and equipment into the Gaza Desalination Project site, especially because it included sensitive chemicals difficult to bring into Gaza and that require a lengthy coordination process with the Israeli side. Other USAID contractors have failed to bring such materials into their project sites.
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Building Foundations, a five-year, USAID-funded program, focuses on water, wastewater, roads, power lines, procurement, well drilling and equipment, school construction, and clinic health for vulnerable populations in the West Bank and Gaza. Blumont was awarded the first Task Order under the program—the 16-month Yatta Distribution Network Rehabilitation and Extension Project—which is providing a reliable, safe, and affordable water supply and distribution system to Yatta city and nearby village Beit Amra.
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