‘Treated waste water no threat to Gulf’

Mahfooz Al-Khadhrawi, director of Sanitary Sewer at the Water Department in Eastern Province, said that waste water discharged in the Gulf is treated and disinfected by chlorine and it does not affect its marine environment.
“The waste water discharged goes through primary and secondary treatments,” Al-Khadhrawi said. “It is pure water that is disinfected using chlorine and it is compliant with the standards of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME). In fact, it is in a way good for the marine environment given the fact it contains dissolved plankton.”
Al-Khadhrawi called on the government and private sectors to exploit treated water in industry and agriculture and fodder production “instead of depleting groundwater and wasting treated water.”
Treated water can be utilized through artificial rivers and cultivation for purposes related to climate or for economic purposes like wood production for example, he said, adding that the Irrigation Commission in Ahsa has a successful experience in terms of recycling large quantities of treated water for use in irrigation.
Currently, a project to transfer treated water from the plant to Ahsa is being executed.
The Water Department in the Eastern Province has 16 waste water treatment plants distributed in the region in addition to sewage water tankers discharge points that are connected to main treatment stations, he said.
Hamad Al-Wabel, acting director of Water Department in the region, said treatment of sewage water takes place in stages. The first is mechanical, in which solid objects, oil and sand are removed through mechanical filters.
He said the second is the biological treatment stage where the water is pumped into sedimentation tanks where solids are settled out and then pumped away and oils float. After that the water is disinfected by chlorine before it is discharged or recycled for restricted irrigation.
In an advanced treatment stage the water is disinfected several times by specific amounts of chlorine to kill any remaining microbes. In this stage, samples are tested every three hours to check the concentration of chlorine in the water.
Samples of treated water are analyzed every day. Samples are also tested every three months for quality and for compatibility with the standards of the Restricted and Unrestricted Irrigation regulation.
A PME source said that discharging rainwater in the waterfront of the Eastern Province is “a grave mistake that is threatening human life” as the waste water would be carrying the residues of car tires that include toxic substances and petroleum substances that would pollute the fish that people eat. He said rainwater is utilized in most countries.
Waste water requires special treatment not disposal in the sea with all the pollutants it carries.