The assurances were in response to the city's Municipal Council, which expressed concerns at the municipality's proposed solutions at a meeting last week.

Hussein Al-Baar, head of the Municipal Council's Environment and Hygiene Committee, had also announced in the local media that some of the municipality's proposed projects would lead to dangerous environmental consequences.

He further warned about a breach in the sand dam, which is blocking the lake, that could lead to massive flooding in the eastern parts of the city.

Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, head of the municipality's media department, said the lake's situation is under control and that several projects are currently taking place to prevent environmental disasters.

"All the ongoing projects at the sewage lake were thoroughly studied by specialized consultants to come up with environment-friendly solutions," he said, adding that the municipality is working hard to find urgent solutions for sewage dumps around the city.

Al-Ghamdi said that the main problem lies with the Ministry of Water and Electricity, which is responsible for the city's sewage network. "People keep blaming the municipality for the sewage problem when in fact it's the responsibility of the Ministry of Water and Electricity, which until now hasn't completed the sewage network project," he said.

He added that the municipality has received SR95 million in aid from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to help deal with the sewage lake and that there is a water purification plant filtering 30,000 cubic meters of water daily.

The municipality has also signed a contract to build a second purification plant with the same capacity to help dry the lake up, he said, adding that a new 12-kilometer long pipeline is currently being constructed to pump water from the sewage lake to a new location in the Al-Khomra area, south of Jeddah.

The municipality also plans to plant trees along the entire lake to help drain water. The sewage lake, which is also sarcastically known as "Musk Lake," contains 9.5 million cubic meters of sewage water spread over a 2.6 square kilometer area. About 800 tanker trucks dump 50,000 cubic meters of sewage into the lake each day.

The lack of a sewage system results in urban flooding during the occasional downpour. The sewage lake has also caused some wells to become poisoned due to raw sewage leaking into aquifers.

© Arab News 2008

 

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