Engineering conservation
Fatemah Farag visits one of the country's most polluted lakes, and finds that the environmental is highly political
"When I was young, the water that came to these parts was sparkling blue and full of saltwater fish, shrimps and crabs," Umm Mohamed, grandmother to a large family, told me as we sat on a bench in her two-room, one-storey cement house in the Lake Manzala area. Gazing out at the lake from the door of her home, you might think she was talking about another place.
Today, her house is flanked on one side by the Bahr Al-Baqar drainage canal, or masraf, used as a receptacle for untreated, partially treated and treated municipal and industrial wastewater in addition to drainage water from agricultural areas. It is a canal through which gummy, oil-like and fetid waters flow towards their final destination -- Lake Manzala. On the other side of Umm Mohamed's home are man-made fisheries, which provide the main source of employment for local residents, filled via pumps with the polluted waters of the masraf and with fish that scientists warn are beginning to show signs of mutations.
Bahr Al-Baqar provides nearby Lake Manzala with 2 billion of the 4.5 billion cubic metres of polluted water it receives annually. The lake itself -- located on the northeastern edge of the Nile Delta between the Damietta branch of the Nile and Port Said, and separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a sandy beach ridge with three openings (boghas) that allow for a limited exchange of water -- has been classified as an environmental disaster for many years.
The United National Development Programme (UNDP) has said of the area, "Fish production overall is high and once supplied 30 per cent of Egypt's total catch. In recent years, however, Lake Manzala's fish have had a reputation for being chemically and microbially contaminated. Tainted drinking water from the lake leads to enteric diseases. Fish and bird species have substantially declined in the area. Land reclamation has also reduced the lake surface by half, and, despite declining quality of life and standards of living near the lake, human populations are increasing, exacerbating the lake's problems." In 1950 the lake is estimated to have comprised 700,000 feddans. Today, it stands at approximately 150,000 feddans.
Dealing with the pollution that comes from Bahr Al-Baqar is crucial. "The Bahr Al-Baqar drain transports water from eastern Cairo for 170km to the lake, carrying large amounts of particulate matter, nutrients, bacteria, heavy metals [cadmium, copper, zinc] and toxic organisms. Methane and hydrogen sulphide bubble up to the surface releasing greenhouse gases. Only the hardiest of organisms can tolerate Lake Manzala at the entrance to the Bahr Al-Baqar drain but still suffer from deformities, discolouration and stunted growth," reported the UNDP.
Mohamed Bayoumi, Global Environment Facility (GEF) officer in Egypt and UNDP programme officer, explained that the percentage of industrial wastewater is very small in comparison with the agricultural waste in the drain. He went on to say that pollutants from industrial activities are non- degradable and accumulate in lake sediments in much higher concentrations than in the water itself. If the bottom of the lake is disturbed, the pollutants can be re-suspended in the water. "Left uncontrolled, this pollution threatens the health and livelihood of millions of inhabitants across a densely populated region," warned Bayoumi.
There are no simple solutions to the lake's pollution woes. As Bayoumi points out, "It is a fact that raw sewage and industrial wastewaters from the communities and workshops in the Delta are discharged into the Bahr Al-Baqar Drain, which takes all the pollutants to the lake. Meanwhile, applying the environmental law [Law No.4 of 1994] blindly in this case would result in the closure of these facilities..." This, Bayoumi says, would have negative social consequences and would present a slew of other problems. "The stations that pump drainage into Bahr Al-Baqar will not be shut down simply because there is no other way for the water to be flushed out. Meanwhile, the water from drain number 17 [downstream from Bahr Al- Baqar] and other drains will remain polluted as long as there is no sanitation system in Egypt's rural areas. Sanitation systems will not be installed in rural Egypt because they require funding beyond the capacity of the state. It is a vicious circle."
Water conservation and sanitation go hand in hand. While the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources has pointed out time and again that the quantity of water that Egypt receives from the Nile is an issue that needs to be discussed with other riparian states, the need to use water more efficiently is clear. "The only way to deal with scarcity is to increase efficiency. We estimate today that the system in Egypt is 70 per cent efficient [50 per cent on the field level]," said Hani El-Saadani, project manager for the Engineered Wetlands Project, a new water treatment initiative.
Just up the road from Umm Mohamed's house, the Engineered Wetlands Project is being set up by the UNDP, the GEF and the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA). "In a water scarce country, people started to consider the waste involved in the dumping of two billion cubic metres of wastewater," El-Saadani told Al- Ahram Weekly.
"RIVERINE ecosystems are endangered virtually everywhere by non-sustainable development and the overuse and misuse of limited freshwater resources. More than half of the world's major rivers are either heavily polluted and/or drying up in their lower reaches because of overuse, according to the World Commission on Water for the 21st century. Of the world's 500 major rivers, 250 are seriously polluted and depleted from overuse. "Only 10 per cent of the Nile's waters ever reach the Mediterranean Sea. And this small amount is heavily polluted with agricultural, industrial and municipal wastes. The result: Delta fisheries have been decimated. Of 47 varieties of commercial fish caught in the Delta 30 years ago, only 17 remain. The res have become extinct or are on the verge of disappearing."
Source: The Netherlands Inter-Experience Foundation
The objective of the Engineered Wetlands Project is to introduce a low-cost technique for treating large quantities of water in lieu of more expensive conventional methods. It is hoped that these endeavours will encourage the use of the technology to reuse reclaimed water in irrigation, fish farming or sewage treatment in remote areas such as resorts in the Red Sea and northwest coast, outlined Bayoumi.
That is not all. El-Saadani is proud to point out that the project is the first of its kind in the Middle East. "The use of wetland technology has not been tried in our kind of climate. In many ways we will be experimenting with the best techniques available. If we are successful, Egypt can become a centre for this technology in the Middle East." El-Saadani said that treating water through engineered wetlands is a mere 10 per cent of the cost of conventional methods.
The technology itself seems straight forward enough. The wetlands have been positioned near the opening of the drain into the lake. Water is diverted into a canal that leads to a large water pump which pushes the water into one of several lots. The water is allowed to sit so that heavy wastes settle before it is moved into lots filled with reeds, lotus flowers and cat tails. Again, the water is allowed to sit so that the plants can extract pollutants. Finally, the water enters pebble- filled lots which remove ammonia before being diverted into a canal that returns it to the drain. The whole process should take a few days and is capable of processing 25,000 to 50,000 cubic metres of wastewater per day.
Yet the details of the project are fraught with complications. How many days should the treatment take? Which plants work best? What industries can use the resultant sediment and weeds? These are issues that have not yet been settled.
The Engineered Wetlands Project, like the politics of the lake itself, is plagued by conflicting interests. Clashes have emerged between fish farmers and fishermen, between those who want to dry the lake for agricultural use and those who want to fish, and between business tycoons and the poor who work in the area. The project itself has been a bone of contention with local residents because it requires the use of a large plot of land in order to work. "The project came and took our land away. And while they tell us they will not expand, why should we believe them? And if they do expand where do we go?" asked Mohamed, an unemployed father of three who has a diploma in commerce and runs a fish farm off of Bahr Al- Baqar.
Despite their resistance to the project, local residents are well aware of how polluted and dangerous their water supply is. "When crossing the water we are careful that it does not touch our skin and we always let the water sit for a week before putting fish into it or else the fish will die. Of course the water is dangerous. Just look at it," exclaimed Umm Mohamed. As we spoke, water buffalo wallowed and ate flowers growing in the polluted Nile waters. A woman stood nearby washing her child in the frothy liquid spouting from an open air pump. "The water is dirty but we live here. If you take the land or water away from us we will die. So which is better?" asked Mohamed.
"We never said that the project will solve pollution problems for the locals as these are large problems. However, we are introducing to the locals a low-cost technology that they can use in treating the water before it enters the fish farms to ensure that they are breeding clean fish. It can also be a means for disposing of their sewage water," said UNDP's Bayoumi.
However, local residents have grounds for their mistrust of the project. They lack their own sources of drinking water -- water arrives via boats and costs LE2 per barrel -- and lack proper sanitation facilities. The nearest school is 10km away and the hospital is equally far.
But, as El-Saadani asserts, for at least some local residents, the fisheries have been big business. "A socio- economic study conducted in 1993 indicated that the domestic average income of people in the area was LE14,000 per year while the national average was LE4,000. The colourful big houses are an indication of wealth. And while many have amassed large sums they continue to live in these conditions."
Furthermore, Bayoumi said, "The owners of the fish farms in this area are squatters on state-owned land and do not have titles for the lands, although they are selling it to each other. You might also have been informed that the fish farming business in this area is run by people who are not living in this area or even in this governorate and are backed by influential people who never appear in the picture but share in the incredible profits of the business. Moreover, the fish farms in this area are fed from the drain and are unfortunately producing polluted fish, a business that should be halted even if our project did not exist. Finally, we heard recently that these people are being compensated with land in a new project in Port Said."
The relationships between local residents and more wealthy outsiders is demonstrated in Umm Mohamed's business, which is supplied by a merchant who makes regular visits to the area. Using a traditional barter system, the merchant, says Umm Mohamed, "gives us rice, flour and inputs for the fisheries. We go to him if we need cash for a doctor or something like that. He keeps all these items listed on a piece of paper." Once the fish harvest is sold on the market, the merchant deducts the cost of the items he had advanced the fish farmers, plus a certain agreed percentage in lieu of interest.
El-Saadani pointed out that there is "great variance within the Lake Manzala community regarding wealth. The population [of two million today] is estimated to have doubled since the early 1990s, however there are no new studies to indicate what effect this has had."
Various conflicting interests and debates about the needs of the area have delayed implementing the wetlands project for several years. However, El-Saadani estimates that they are currently only three months away from implementation. "Then it will take a year to test production," he says. Once set into motion, the Engineered Wetlands Project hopes to be able to set up its own fishery and sell zaariya (fish fries) to the fish farmers in the area so that they do not buy those fished illegally from the lake. Those involved with the project also hope to have extra water to offer the people in the area for irrigation. They will attempt to develop a technology that can be used to solve the ever- growing problems created by increasingly polluted water not only in the vicinity of the lake but elsewhere in the country. "There are lots of lessons that we have learned, and many that remain to be learned," admitted El-Saadani.
Perhaps the most important question remaining is whether Bahr Al-Baqar and Lake Manzala can be cleaned while protecting the livelihoods of local residents who have no alternatives.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 5 -11 June 2003 (Issue No. 641)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/641/sc3.htm