The working sessions of the fourth Jeddah Water and Power Conference concluded on Monday, having covered a lot of ground in the series of panel discussions over the two working days. There was a great deal of detailed talk about privatization and new desalination projects that seemed encouraging in addressing the issue of water supply in the Kingdom, but several areas integral to good water management remained barely touched, the elephant in the Kingdom’s majlis that nobody mentioned.
The hydrological pachyderm obtruded once more during the penultimate session of the conference during a discussion on waste management and water reuse.
Vice President of CRA International Paul Rathbone who advised Jeddah municipality on sewerage contracts, moderated the panelist session and set the tone by saying; “Pumping waste water into the sea is unsustainable given the water scarcity situation in the Kingdom.”
In a highly detailed and comprehensive presentation by Wah Yuen Long, director Water Reclamation (Plants) of the Public Utilities Board of Singapore, it became apparent exactly what could be done with wastewater if readily available technology was coupled with good management and the will to reuse water rather than manufacture new.
Singapore, with a population of 4.8 million, has considerable rainfall (2,400mm per annum) as compared with Saudi Arabia (100-112 per annum) yet has a chronic water shortage. The reason is that Singapore’s relatively small land area of 655 sq. km (about one half the area of urban Jeddah’s 1,320 sq. km) allows no large catchment or storage areas.
Reusing water became one of the four pillars of water sourcing, Wah pointed out. “Rainfall was high but not all useable so reuse became a priority along with the construction of desalination plants and the import of water from Malaysia,” he told delegates.
He noted that while accessing new sources, the Singapore government put in place a comprehensive program of education and encouragement to reduce the per capita consumption of water. This reduced Singapore’s water consumption from 172 liters per capita per day in 1995 to 157 liters in 2007. Jeddah currently uses 270 per capita plus.
Water reclamation and reuse has become a major support industry in Singapore both to support the growing population and to a large measure to ensure water security. Wah detailed the processes involved which include six water reclamation plants and a complex but efficient water management structure to ensure the purity of the reclaimed and reused water. “Our [reclaimed] water quality program tests 293 parameters — 96 stipulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency and 113 by WHO,” he said.
Reused water is transmitted through a separate pipeline delivery system and used largely by the large electrical industry on the island, air conditioning systems and industrial boilers.
Mahmoud Fatallah, director of corporate projects for Saudi Arabia’s National Water Company followed up with a survey of the conservation and reuse plans for Jeddah which, he said, included an increase of the Al-Khumra treatment plant’s capacity of secondary stage cleaning to 140,000 cubic meters per day over three phases of development. He indicated that the output would be used for agriculture, district cooling, industrial purposes and aquifer recharge.
This prompted a question from the floor concerning a recent report in Jeddah (Arab News Nov. 1) that said the heavily polluted Wadi Al Asla Lake was to be emptied through one of the city’s rainwater channels “to lessen the amount of sewage.” Ibrahim Kutubkhana, undersecretary at the mayor’s office in Jeddah was quoted as saying; “Treated sewage will be poured into the sea through the southern rainwater channel and that there would be no environmental issues as “the sewage would only be sent out after the tertiary stage of treatment.” Why, asked the questioner referring to Rathbone’s opening remarks concerning water scarcity, was allegedly clean tertiary water being dumped especially after the NWC had just shown plans for reuse and aquifer recharge — and this with a chronic water shortage? The question received no answer.
Recycling and reusing water, said Ali Ben Haj Hamida of GE Water Process Technologies made good sense in water starved areas as it was cheaper than producing new water by desalination, it got water back to the consumer and using membrane technologies, was efficient and safe.
“Within five years, 80 to 85 percent of wastewater reclaim in the MENA area will be through membrane technologies,” he said.
For that to happen, the panelists agreed, water had to have a commercial value — especially for consumers. Heavy subsidies by a government led to low perceived value and undisciplined use; wastage by any other name.
There was, said Bob Smith of METITO Utilities, resistance to the reuse of potable (drinking) water in many areas of the world. “Most don’t like drinking reused water, but that happens all the time with the Thames in the UK,” he said, adding that there were cultural and religious aspects to this which had to be taken into account.
Responding from the floor, Ghassan Ejjeh, director of Six Construct of Abu Dhabi, said that from his research, he had been informed that the religious concerns over reusing water could be perfectly addressed if the recycled and treated water were used to recharge aquifers and then re-extracted after natural filtration processes.
Steve Stanish of UK’s Severn Trent Water summed up the recycling and reuse equation by saying that the whole process relied on the establishment of a recycling process that met rigidly enforced quality standards; continued monitoring and enforcement of those standards and “education toward using recycled water. That begins at school.”
The conference business, concluded yesterday, included a visit by delegates to Jeddah’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) desalination plant.