“The water ministry says Jordan, where 92 percent of the land is desert, will need 1.6 billion cubic metres of water a year to meet its requirements by 2015, while the population of 6.8 million is growing by almost 3.5 percent a year. Officials say the project has required 250,000 tonnes of steel and the digging of 55 wells to pump water from Disi to Amman, where the per capita daily consumption [is 42 gallons]. A 2008 study by Duke University, in the United States, shows that Disi’s water has 20 times more radiation than is considered safe, with radium content that could trigger cancers. But the government has brushed aside those concerns.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/07/11/parched-jordan-to-start-pumping-from-300000-year-old-aquifer/