Sinai desalination plant shuts amid regional contamination fears from Israeli war on Gaza

Mediterranean water contamination has started threatening drinking water supply to hundreds of thousands of people in North Sinai, after the closure of the largest desalination plant in this north-eastern Egyptian territory.

The state-run North Sinai Drinking Water and Sewage Company was forced to shut down the Kilometre 17 desalination plant earlier this month, citing a rise in Mediterranean water turbidity.

The company said it would take the necessary measures to compensate province residents for the disruption of supply from the plant.

With its annual share from the Nile River, its principal source of fresh water, dwarfed by the growing population and its accelerating agricultural expansion, Egypt has increased reliance on seawater desalination and sewage treatment to satisfy its rising water needs.

The populous Arab country now operates 125 desalination plants, having added dozens of such plants to its desalination capacity over the past decade as part of its water security plans.

These plants include 27 in Sinai which shares borders with the Gaza Strip and Israel.

A brewing problem

North Sinai is home to nine desalination plants that together produce tens of thousands of cubic metres of water each day.

This output meets the basic needs of hundreds of thousands of people in the province.

Kilometre 17 is by far the largest desalination plant in North Sinai. It is designed to produce 300,000 cubic metres of water every day, once its two phases are complete, according to Egyptian media.

Phase I of the plant, which has been shut down because of Mediterranean water contamination, produces 100,000 cubic metres of water every day.

The suspension of the plant's production has caused suffering to people and left them scrambling for alternative sources in a part of the world where bottled water is an unaffordable luxury for many.

"We've been without water from the plant for over two weeks now," Mohamed Nasr, a resident of Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai, said.

"My daughters and I have to walk a long distance to get the water," he added.

Speaking to The New Arab, he expressed frustration at the current disruption, which compounds the lack of other services in the province.

The North Sinai Drinking Water and Sewage Company said it would distribute drinking water for free in the different cities of the province.

Nasr said, however, that the water trucks operated by the company are nowhere to be found, which adds a layer of financial suffering to people like him, who cannot afford the purchase of water.

"The plant's closure has caused the price of water to surge dramatically in the market," he said.

Nasr revealed that he has to pay 400 Egyptian pounds (roughly $7.8) for a water tank with 2,000 litres in it, from 200 pounds for the same tank earlier.

The tank, he said, meets his family's needs for two or three days only, depending on their consumption.

Located west of Arish, Kilometre 17 plant also serves the other North Sinai cities of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, on the border with Gaza.

Gaza connection

North Sinai authorities have yet to determine the reasons for the rise in Mediterranean water turbidity levels.

A technical and environmental team has toured the Kilometre 17 plant on 5 September to investigate these reasons and determine the technical measures needed to re-operate it.

Nobody has succeeded in providing any scientifically-proven reason for the contamination of Mediterranean water off North Sinai.

Some people have, however, linked this contamination, especially the presence of microalgae blooms, to material originating near Egypt's Nile Delta.

Nonetheless, the recent closure of several desalination plants in Israel may point to a common cause.

Israeli scientists are now debating whether sewage flowing from Gaza due to damage by Israel war helped fuel a similar microalgae bloom off the Israeli coast.

Still suffering incessant Israeli attacks, even as the truce sponsored by US President Donald Trump continues to be in effect since October last year, Gaza experiences a severe sewage and sanitation crisis after nearly 90% of its water and waste infrastructure was destroyed.

The war-ravaged territory faces a total collapse of its sanitation system, with tens of thousands of cubic metres of raw sewage flooding streets and displacement camps every day, according to the United Nations.

Regional fallout

If sewage flowing into the Mediterranean proves to be the reason for the contamination of water off the Israeli coast, this would be a problem of Israel's making, political analysts said.

With the same problem causing the disruption of water supply in both Egypt and Israel, it also offers insights into how the effects of Israel's killing and destruction in Gaza cannot be contained inside the Palestinian territory, they added.

"I have seen conditions in Gaza move from bad to worse, with Israel escalating its attacks, despite the ceasefire," Palestinian political analyst Ayman al-Raqab told TNA.

The more such attacks continue, he added, the harder life becomes for the people of Gaza.

He warned against the toll Gaza's destruction would have on neighbouring Mediterranean countries, if action is not taken to rehabilitate the Palestinian territory as soon as possible.

Egypt has been lobbying for reconstructing Gaza to stave off its people's deteriorating humanitarian conditions since the ceasefire came into effect.

With a multibillion dollar reconstruction plan in hand, Cairo has also been exerting tremendous effort–together with other ceasefire mediators–to prevent Israel from derailing the lull in fighting.

On 8 September, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said his country strongly opposed Israeli plans to displace Gaza's population.

He also called for ensuring the entry of sufficient amounts of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.

While the ceasefire continues to hold on paper, the people of Gaza receive a fraction of the humanitarian aid needed, according to international relief organizations, amid reports that Israel blocks up to 65% of the required aid.

These deteriorating humanitarian conditions add to the miserable state of infrastructure in the war-torn territory, something whose effects cannot remain confined to Gaza, analysts said.

"I am confident that the pollution flowing into the sea from Gaza will negatively affect neighbouring countries," al-Raqab said.

"This makes it necessary for the international community to move to improve conditions in the territory before it's too late," he added.