IT RAINED HERE in Jeddah on the last day of the previous year. The rains came down heavily around midday but lasted only briefly. Returning from some late night revelry it being New Year’s Eve, I could not help but notice that most neighborhoods remained flooded with standing pools of water.
The following morning on my way to work with some navigating around several flooded areas, I came across a sewage dump truck casually emptying his smelly payload by one of these pools of water. Stopping and inquiring of him his dubious activities, I was told that this was actually rain water that he had pumped in from some other neighborhood.
The Municipality had ordered all such dump trucks to pump out the water floods from the roads.
"Then why are you dumping it here?" I asked. "All you are doing is moving water from one neighborhood to the other. Not only that, but once you’ve pumped in the rain water into your sewage truck, what you are dumping out now is filth. And that my friend is what causes a host of disease. And I am not going to allow you to get me any sicker!"
Now I don’t know how many readers have had success with such individuals on my line of reasoning, but this character suddenly took on a very shifty demeanor, and more so when I feigned a call to the Municipality. He ran back to his truck, returning with some absurd photocopied piece of paper that made no sense, other than recording how many trips he had made.
Realizing the firm rejection on my face, he slowly made his way back to his truck and turned off the water taps. "Wait a minute!" I yelled out through the car window. I’m getting someone from the Municipality here to sort this out." Ignoring my cries, he quickly got into the cab of the truck and sped off.
I gave chase for a while as I feverishly tried to locate any number for our Municipality on my mobile phone, but without any luck. And I did have to go to work. The chase thus grudgingly petered out. Continuing on my way I noticed quite a few such trucks doing the same thing in other areas. A few may have had a twinge of conscience. They carefully chose to dump their load in an empty lot instead.
Now a one-man crusader I am not, especially with other duties beckoning. But I did resolve to take this matter with the Municipality in search of answers. My calls that day were diverted from one section to the other within the different departments and branches of the Municipality as most of the bureaucrats there were undoubtedly astonished that someone was actually calling in with a complaint.
To no avail, and with other pressing engagements on hand, I reluctantly gave up. But I wonder. If I can notice such violations during one trip, could others not see them? Or have we become so desensitized to this increasing number of transgressions on our civic sense that we have simply given up?
Should not the Municipality have more patrols after the rains, ensuring that rain water is properly dispensed with? Dumping it on quiet streets or undeveloped lots is not the answer. Dysentery is an immediate by-product of such activities. And pity the lot owner who is unaware of the toxicity being breached into the soils on which his home may sit one day.
Pompous press releases glorifying the state of success with our sew sage system ring on deaf ears. It took about less than eight years after a bold statement by a president to send man to the moon.
Our Municipality on the other hand has been working on our sewage system almost three times as long and on a far larger budget!
Happy New Year!
— Tariq A. Al-Maeena , [email protected]