On Monday, the President inaugurated the Bahr al-Baqar water treatment plant, at a cost of 20 billion pounds, with a production capacity of 5.6 million cubic meters per day of triple treated water.
The station is supposed to serve the Sinai development axis to plant about 400,000 acres as a target of the project. Of course, this type of investment in water treatment is very important, and unfortunately the Egyptian state did not notice it until late, with the crisis of the Renaissance Dam.
What is the new station? Why is this really such an important achievement? What do you need in the future in the file of water and agriculture in Egypt? That’s what we’re going to talk about today
Bahr al-Baqar Bank is one of the oldest agricultural banks in Egypt, but with the increase in the urban mass in the Sharkia and the Canal governorates, it turned into a drain that includes agricultural and industrial drainage and sewage, and this was due to a major environmental problem, especially since the drain’s water is supposed to be used for agriculture.
Bahr al-Baqar Bank is about 190 km long. It is considered one of the most dangerous banks in Egypt due to its bad environmental impact. It is the only one that extends from southern Cairo through 5 governorates, namely Port Said, Ismailia, Sharqia, Dakahlia and Qalyubia, and ends with disbursing what is inside in Lake Manzala.
– Therefore, investing in the construction of a triple treatment plant in this magnitude is a good investment, because it aims to bring about a qualitative leap in agriculture in this region and an important part of the development axis in Sinai.
– The cost of constructing the plant is about 20 billion Egyptian pounds, and it is the largest triple sewage treatment plant in the world at the present time. This is a number recorded by Guinness World Records with the opening of the plant.
This is in addition to two other numbers, which are the largest sludge treatment plant, which is the materials and impurities produced from the tertiary treatment of water, and the largest ozone production plant in the world.
The Bahr al-Baqar water treatment plant project in East Port Said consists of the water outlet channel to be treated, and it will start from the Bahr al-Baqar drain overlooking Lake Manzala, and then pass through the Salam culvert to the station in East Port Said, and be treated through several stages, after which it will exit to a special water outlet. Treatment from the treatment plant to the Sheikh Jaber Canal, along with 4 main water treatment tracks.
– The station includes 7 units, and one station disposes of 11 cubic meters per second, and also aims to save Lake Manzala from waste and pollutants, and this will have a positive impact on the preservation and development of fisheries and the return of the lake to its golden age, because it is wrong but to portray that the achievement is limited to only On the water saving side, but really about saving half of the delta from pollutants.
Bahr al-Baqar plant will produce daily about 5.6 million cubic meters of water usable in agriculture, and it is assumed that the water produced from the lake is later mixed with the water coming from the Nile through the Salam Canal.
The water resulting from this treatment is sufficient to reclaim nearly a quarter of a million acres of desert land and when mixed with the Nile River water at a ratio of 1:1, it can be sufficient to cultivate more than 400,000 acres, which is intended to be planted in the Sheikh Jaber Canal Project in North Sinai.
– Among the areas that the station will contribute to reclaiming its lands: Sahel Al-Tina, South Qantara East, June 30, Bir Al-Abed, Al-Sir, and Al-Qawareer.
– It should also be noted that the station was implemented by two Egyptian companies, namely the Arab Contractors and Orascom, and therefore the money went to Egyptian companies and employed Egyptians, and this is a very important thing in infrastructure projects like these.
The money that financed the construction of the station is 3 loans from Kuwait worth 50 million dinars in July 2018, another 25 million dinars as an additional loan in September 2019 and a final loan of 55 million dinars in July this year.
– With a total borrowing of 130 million dinars, with a soft interest of about 1.5%, in addition to 5% fees over 20 years, I mean, to work on this project, we borrowed approximately 7 billion pounds, in addition to the interests that will be paid for 20 years.
But what is useful in this borrowing is that it is a borrowing directed at an infrastructure project that is supposed to result in a large investment from the private sector in cultivating these areas, and thus a borrowing that leads to long-term development.
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What do you need in the water and agriculture file in the next period?
The state has begun to take an increasing interest in the water file in the recent period, and this is of course a result of the aggravation of the Renaissance Dam crisis, but we were in constant need for these investments, even by the dam, because almost from 2010 and Egypt is below the international water poverty line, in addition to the process of diversifying water sources Especially those who go to agriculture are very important with the continuous population increase.
– Therefore, investing in agricultural and sanitary wastewater treatment plants, and treating sea water, despite the high cost of these investments, which are often financed through loans, is very important for the future of agriculture in this country.
– But the important difference is not in the investments that are made in the initial infrastructure of these projects, but also in the complementary investments in the subject, I mean, for example, in the case of Bahr al-Baqar, the process of reclamation and cultivation of the 400,000 acres of desalinated water from the station must be accelerated.
We must avoid the problems of previous projects like Toshka when the Gulf investment took it and left it empty for years, or planted it with important crops like alfalfa, while Egypt has a problem with wheat, so we have the challenge of choosing crops that need it and appropriate to irrigate it with this water.
– Therefore, the model of agricultural cooperatives that have population and urban blocks that operate cities based on these cooperatives, production and small-scale manufacturing in agriculture in order to cover the needs of the local market or export, is a very important model and really pushes for a development boom for the entire Sinai axis, not only the area that the water of Bahr al-Baqar goes to.
Distributing these lands to young people and small families from the people of Sinai and from the farmers of the Delta and Upper Egypt, whose areas have narrowed them, is important and will make sustainable urban communities in the area important to Egypt’s national security in Sinai, while avoiding importing unsuccessful development models in the countryside and recognizing the specificity of the place.
– After the large investment in providing clean water to the region, if the issue is entrusted to a large Gulf or Egyptian investor who takes large areas of land and plants it with crops that we do not need in Egypt, and uses the water that remained thanks to investments paid from Egyptian taxes, it will be a reproduction of unsuccessful agricultural reclamation models like Toshka, Al-Awainat, and others, and they are completely untouched.
In general, agriculture in Egypt needs more attention from the state, not only in the water file, in which we see great progress, whether in the project of lining canals or others, but we also need support for small and medium farmers to achieve sustainable food security in Egypt.
We also need to support production inputs from the state, intensive investment in the development of seeds and fertilizers, and solving accumulated problems for farmers. All reforms that are supposed to target small and medium-sized ownership will make a big boom in agriculture in Egypt.
Sinai, especially the area around El-Arish and Bir al-Abed, and in which the Bahr al-Baqar project is located, has great potential. basically the area.
All thanks and appreciation for the efforts made by the state in the water file, but the road is still long and there are many needs that must be done and many mistakes that occurred in previous projects that must be avoided in new projects.