JEDDAH: No waste from the Musk Lake will be allowed to reach the Red Sea untreated, so says a senior source in the wastewater infrastructure industry with specialist knowledge of the environmental restrictions now rigidly enforced by the Meteorological and Environmental Protection Agency (MEPA).
Speaking to Arab News on condition of anonymity, the source said that although he is aware of plans to build two pipelines connecting the lake to Kouraimah treatment plant in the south and slicing west through the northern suburbs, “there is no way that this waste will be dumped untreated.”
There was, he said, a variety of proposals currently under discussion. “I am not aware of anyone who will pump it into the sea without treatment,” he said.
He added that there are several official bodies looking at them but it depended under whose jurisdiction the works fall, and that there are various groups vying for control of the problem.
“One idea, apart from sea discharge, is to treat the effluent and use the processed water to recharge the local aquifer. However, to my knowledge no decision has been reached over this,” he said.
Over the last few years, the enforcement of environmental regulations on new projects has been considerably tightened. Project managers are required to produce comprehensive environmental impact studies for new works to demonstrate compliance. These are closely monitored by MEPA and whichever authority finally takes on the construction of the discharge channels, the environmental standards will apply.
A small new treatment plant is in operation at the lake. Settling ponds and aeration lagoons — where pressurized air is pumped through the waste to kill anaerobic bacteria (bacteria that do not use oxygen and produce the odor associated with waste) — are on stream. Tankers carrying raw waste from Jeddah are diverted away from their traditional discharge point that leads directly into the lake and form a kilometer long line waiting to use the new plant.
“The authorities will be building an additional treatment plant,” said the source, “and discussions on the methods of disposal have been carried out. I repeat that at no time have I heard of any plans to discharge waste directly into the sea.” The whole subject was, he said, a “very hot potato, very hot.”
The Jeddah municipality has said it wishes to empty the lake within a year. Building a treatment plant to process the wastewater will use a considerable portion of that time. The southern treatment plant in Kouraimah is already overloaded with wastewater. The options open to the authorities for getting rid of the water within a year are very limited, especially if they intend to build a new plant.
A series of earth-banked settling ponds currently exist south of the main Musk Lake earth dam and more are being constructed. Unprocessed water discharged there may seep through into the water table below causing pollution to the aquifer.
