MADINAH, 20 November 2007 — Municipal authorities in Madinah have conceded what some people have suspected for a while: That the Hamra Al-Assad area between Madinah and Abyar Ali is polluted with chemical waste. They are now pushing to adopt measures to clean up the area.
Muhammad Anwar Bakri, acting president of the municipal council in Madinah region, and Hamoud Al-Harbi, the council’s secretary-general, confirmed in a report carried by the Arabic daily Al-Madinah yesterday that waste containing arsenic, chromium and cadmium have been deposited at Hamra Al-Assad over the past 20 years. The King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology’s preliminary analysis noticed high levels of toxic substances in the waste there.
On several occasions the municipal authorities had dismissed the existence of chemical pollution at Hamra Al-Assad. Madinah Mayor Abdul Aziz Al-Hussayyen previously said that the reports he received did not show any evidence of pollution in water wells at Hamra Al-Assad.
The municipal council came to the conclusion that there was pollution in the area after studying various reports including the technical report by the KAACST, Bakri and Al-Harbi said.
A council meeting stressed the need for taking steps to stop ground water pollution and make the agricultural produce from the area fit for human consumption.
The council meeting also discovered that the location was not suitable for sanitary sewage deposits due to geological factors, such as the elevation, wind direction and proximity to residential areas. The location was selected without consulting any competent specialists on the matter.
The council pointed out without elaborating that the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) said the present dumping ground does not fulfill official specifications. It said industrial plants in the area send out liquid waste there, ignoring the regulations.
The council recommended the relocation of the dumping ground to an area that meets all safety and environmental specifications. It also urged the PME and the ministries of agriculture, and water and electricity to undertake studies to determine the extent of the pollution in the wells and agricultural products in Hamra Al-Assad.
The council urged the Ministry of Health to conduct surveys among people living near the site to make sure nobody is suffering health problems related to the waste. The council also decided to set up a committee to identify the factories that dump pollutants in the area and force them to abide by the environment regulations.
The council recommended that licenses should not be issued to chemical plants that do not have on-site waste-treatment facilities.
