Polluted Nile.

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Hafiz
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Polluted Nile.

Post by Hafiz »

Deutsche Welle Nile Water

For the Junta of Egypt the Nile water is pure, rigorously tested and cannot get better and the only water enemy is outside Egypt, Ethiopia, and all of the heroes and protectors of the Nile are in Egypt. What rot.

Egypt claims to place the highest priority on the Nile and the constitution says in s44:

“The State commits to protecting the Nile River, maintaining Egypt’s historic rights thereto, rationalizing and maximizing its benefits, not wasting its water or polluting it.

The State commits to protecting its mineral water, to adopting methods appropriate to achieve water safely, and to supporting scientific research in this field.

Every citizen has the right to enjoy the Nile River. It is prohibited to encroach upon it or to harm the river environment. The State guarantees to remove encroachments thereon.” Has much been done in the past 70 years? Little – although recently lots of poor people with activities/buildings encroaching the Nile have been tossed out whereas, just in Cairo, in 2015 there were 13 factories, five government buildings, 27 government-affiliated social clubs, five embassies, two educational establishments, four gas stations, 17 mosques, one church, and five parking spaces along the Nile in Greater Cairo. The Judges Club is one of the law breakers – as if they care. http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent ... banks.aspx

Like most law in Egypt its just rhetoric for the stupid – and western governments. The constitution never prevented the Government/Parliament from passing laws contrary to it or from the government/military defying court decisions they didn’t like.

There is all the current screaming about Ethiopia and bad people trying to ruin the Nile. A few years ago Egypt did at least one mad thing with the Nile - Toshka – developed and ‘managed’ by the Government of Egypt, basically ‘gifted’ by the Government of Egypt to an unstable Saudi Prince with no experience in farming and then to the Egyptian Army and connected persons with no relevant skills (I assume land and infrastructure were free or nearly free)

Toshka would have reduced the Nile flow by 10%. In January and December the level would therefore have been very low and the flow slower – increasing the concentration of pollution in river water. There is no evidence that the Government or the great Dr, Professor, Major General Farag at the time cared in the slightest http://www.progreendiploma.com/wp-conte ... tudy-1.pdf pp 37 and 41 or that this was considered a threat to Egypt. If it was a threat it was one done to itself. As with all else there is no evidence of any proper plan for Toshka which considered all its effects – as its turned out the benefits of it are close to zero and the costs to the Egyptian taxpayer, in modern money, $US1.5-10 billion (in old money). It won’t be the last of this kind.

The belching about Ethiopia, maybe a 5% flow reduction but more likely an unpredictable and variable flow into a Lake Nasser that needs a good 7 year 24 hour a day dredge, seems ridiculous when they were going to give 10% of their own water to a few rich fools. The former is Ethiopian water beyond their control- the latter their own within their control.

My point is that reckless stupid things done to the Nile by Egyptians aren’t new even if you ignore waste/primitive irrigation systems/mad government compulsion to grow specific high water, low profit crops – compulsions not imposed on the rich, connected or military farms, and maybe not on military figures – but I think only generals not the other million.

DW the German Government Radio system that has interests in social and environment issues has done a radio program on the Nile at Aswan. it takes a research based approach – rather than rhetorical Egyptian Ministerial Press Releases.

They make the obvious point that if Nile water is polluted and this affects food that is irrigated with Nile water – and therefore human health. It also affects those persons, usually poor, not protected by urban purification systems.

They make the point that factories, often owned by connected persons or the military, pump their pollution into the river with few if any restrictions or the regulatory ’authorities’ ignore their breach of the law – it was ever thus.
http://www.dw.com/en/world-in-progress- ... v-42975979

The polluting fertilizer factory at Aswan mentioned by DW is probably the Egyptian Chemical Industries Company KIMA – whose information on itself contains everything but what you want to know – does it make a profit (it does but has crashed even though its turnover has soared). It produces phosphate, ammonia and urea for farm fertilizers but I can’t work out where its natural/mineral inputs come from or whether they are shipped in. The largest phosphate mine is 400k’s away near Safaga on the coast. This just doesn’t make sense. https://www.crugroup.com/knowledge-and- ... cost-base/

They pump 2-5,000,000 cubic meters of polluted water into the Nile a year.

That there has been serious pollution from this factory dangerous to people has been known in official reports for 18 years – but nothing done. http://www.eeaa.gov.eg/esp/images/Docum ... 202000.pdf

There is an academic paper saying there is a groundwater problem in the KIMA area possibly connected with the activity/inactivity of the factory. https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... pper_Egypt

There have been published academic studies on the Government KIMA area which set off alarm bells on heavy metals since 2007 in the human body. The Government ignored it.

It established its own ‘city’ set in the middle of nowhere – a bit like the mad Toshka centrally planned command and control model of how industry should be established and human beings live – not well. The argument in this case was to place the factory close to the electricity supply – not a decisions the Canadians or Australians take with their sources of hydro power – but what would they know.

The most common way to produce nitrogen-based fertilizers is through a century old process called the Haber-Bosch process from natural gas as a major input, combined with high heat pressure, to form ammonia. But not in Egypt.

KIMA was established by Nasser and probably privatized under Mubarak – sold to friends with no track record in the relevant industry or more likely, as with other state assets, floated on the exchange but still controlled by Government. It fooled the World Bank/IMF that Egypt had delivered on its privatization promises for getting our money - which wasn’t hard.

Whether it pays a full commercial rate for Aswan dam electricity is a mystery – as it is in the case of all other gas and electricity tariffs to the army and commercial businesses. The only people who pay a full rate are probably the poor. They seem to have got heavily involved in Solar power which is very, very odd for a 24 hour factories and the high expense of batteries to store solar power – but what do I know.

They have also done a huge expansion, and more foul water into the Nile, costing, its vague, $US500-800 million – the budget seems to have been blown a few times probably because of poor Egyptian skills. No reputable Western Bank has provided loans.

Expanding production It doesn’t make sense because the agricultural phosphate market demand in Egypt is flat, new technology derives agricultural fertilizers from natural gas, its too remote from cheap transport options for its high volume high weight product to export/local use destinations and lots else. It claims it is going to move to gas technology for producing phosphates – something they have no experience in. Where they are going to get the online supply of massive amounts of gas is not clear and the cost of pumping it down a pipeline from the northern or western desert gas fields would be huge. Maybe the taxpayer will pay for it. The initially hired an Italian, then a German then someone else to do their build with their friends Orascom, with no relevant experience, getting a huge portion.

Nubian families had been kicked out of the KIMA site without compensation in the 50/60’s when it was established as part of the centrally planned socialist economy – that never works. It’s a dirty place in more way than one.

Its location is East of the town:
Image

Like many other Boards of Egyptian businesses KIMA is stacked with engineers, its own employees and government chaps – it is entirely inward looking, male, old, lacking commercial experience, lacking any education or work experience outside Egypt, lacking private sector experience, lacking experience of ever making a profit etc. Its Chairman and managing director (why do you combine these two jobs unless you are a control freak) Mohamed Abdalla Elhoot seems to live a 1.000ks away in Cairo.

Given the company seems a confused mess I have little difficult believing it pollutes the river – and probably badly. Its interesting that there is only one thing Egypt has/must keep clean and it’s the Nile and they fail badly.

Its odd, Saudi Princes get free land to reduce Nile water (and probably get free water as well), government factories pollute the Nile, tens of thousands of bureaucrats forget to do their environment regulation job and the taxpayer/UN/American taxpayer is forced to pay to build water purification plants after it was polluted by these people and pay the ongoing labor and chemical costs of this water. The state servants, and governors, whose job it was/is to provide water ignored the deterioration in quality/pollution and were never held to account.

KINA’s industry is one of many where Egypt has not or is ever likely to be competitive. This industry requires one thing which should not be a priority for the people of Egypt - lots of capital, lots of imported capital inputs but not much labor.

There are 7/8 other Government (Industry) Holding Companies which controls scores of seemingly privatized near useless companies. They export trivial amounts – completely at variance with the capital put into them. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/40 ... in-Q1-2017. If they had been privatized competent people might have managed it – after getting rid of all of the current crowd.

It’s a bit like Stalin. Just get a map and scream at the party members to establish a city/factory….there. Near Aswan at Edfu is also a state owned/fake privatised ferrosilicon/ferro alloy blast furnace – dirty, uses lots of electricity and a business where its almost impossible to make a buck. Like a lot in Egypt – Nasser established it, times have changed but Egyptians never change. There are other similar Dodo’s in Upper Egypt. http://www.aun.edu.eg/arabic/society/au ... r_2002.pdf.

David Sims in ‘Desert Dreams’ says Edfu has never made a profit – and no one ever fired for incompetence. It pollutes the river at a high rate (14 million cubic meters a year) http://www.progreendiploma.com/wp-conte ... tudy-1.pdf and pollutes the soil with lead, cadmium and cobalt. Lead pollution can have a negative effect on child IQ and on workers.

At this moment the European, and possibly other, export markets are closed to it because of allegations that the Egyptians are dumping this product at less than fair value. Clearly Egyptian Government companies pollute without care and also don’t care for profit. So even after halving their currency and giving themselves a huge cost advantage in international markets – they still can’t get it right. https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ure-ad2220

Its another state corporation that can’t even build a market based on its low costs and can’t make a profit.

Government owned Sugar factories in Upper Egypt are also big polluters into the Nile. Government ‘managed’ drains into the Nile aren’t managed and Khour El sail drain at Aswan is the worst or second worst single source of Nile pollution in Egypt.

By the bye KIMA seems to be a hell hole for tourists, at least in 2011, with some locals behaving like paranoid schizophrenics towards polite and educated tourists who had done nothing wrong. https://research-repository.griffith.ed ... sequence=1

My guess is that if it’s a government factory, a municipality, a military facility or related the environment/pollution inspectors know to stay well away – if they want to keep their jobs. There seems no attempt by the medical profession/Ministry of Health to systematically track birth defects, learning difficulties, stunted development, low IQ etc – indeed any of the known effects from the known pollutants.

A 2015 in site article about pollution in Aswan and the delta. It makes the point that bladder cancer may be connected to water pollution. That is not a clear as the journalist thinks because Schistosomiasis is implicated but worth investigating because Egypt and Zambia have the two highest bladder cancer rates in the world whereas Egypt’s Schis. rates are hugely lower than Zambia. http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/f ... 2047735604

The Egyptian Habi Center for Environmental Rights was a community based NGO active in pursuing corporate offenders (very dangerous). Its been inactive since 2015 for obvious reasons and I hope their workers aren’t in jail. I can find no other Egyptian NGO active in the environmental area although there are government ‘stooge-like’ organizations, a bit like the women’s organization that members of this forum like. The good things about the stooge NGO’s is their propaganda and the fact that no one elected them. An interesting article by Habi on water argues the new capital invested by the state in the water system has gone to predictable beneficiaries – not the poor. http://www.hcer.org/en/?p=137

In 2010 the Habi Center stated that some 17,000 children a year died in Egypt from gastroenteritis directly or indirectly connected to Nile pollution (children have lower resistance to gastro. than adults). https://www.greenprophet.com/2010/10/ni ... lls-17000/

If the Nile is polluted as soon as it gets into Egypt its no wonder that by the time it gets to the Delta its foul and a danger to food grown and the humans/animals who live along side it or drink it.

Laughably the New Cairo Waste Water System (built by Orascom who have no experience in this area but may co-own it, under the control of the world’s worst government agency the New Urban Communities Authority with the World Bank providing $US500 million and some donated money) has been lying idle for 8 years following which Acciona of Spain has been given the operating contract. The capacity of the plant is 500% of the existing population demand. Another example of overcapitalization not linked to foreseeable demand – like the new $U9/S21 billion tossed at the Canal where after 3 years demand is still flat.

Allegations of serious corruption against this Spanish company are so numerous they can’t be listed but I guess they got the contract from Egypt on the basis of complementary morals. Nick Clegg’s wife used to be a director but stepped down because of the storm of corruption allegations. Allegations of corruption in Australia have been made in speeches in our Senate. Somewhere north of 13 of their water executives have been arrested for crimes in Spain.

The same company is an investor in other areas in Egypt including in the very odd Benban solar energy super-project (near Kom Ombo control unclear, location makes no sense and the feed in tariffs are secret but probably high. Whether locals were compensated for seized land I leave to you) – with finance provided to the Spanish multinational by the very dubious International Finance Corporation – a subsidiary of the World Bank. Why they provide finance and not a commercial bank and why the World Bank is involved in purely commercial activities is another, and very dirty, story.

I’ve wandered a bit – sorry – but this story is one that never ends, gets worse and heads off in various directions - always involving the powerful and corrupt and the 300 families that Bassiouni says run Egypt.

Other reading: https://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/ ... 2047735604 and https://thearabweekly.com/nile-vital-so ... ce-disease and https://www.greenprophet.com/2015/04/is ... pollution/


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Re: Polluted Nile.

Post by Who2 »

Fascinating. Lead pollution can have a negative effect on child IQ and on workers.
It's seems to-be contagious round here as well.
So, No mention of the subterranean aquifers then, but interesting article... 8)
Ps: Opposite me is a water tower and pump built by the British the Egyptians built a smaller one,
10379
10 years ago as they were knocking it down, it fell down killing three.
I have still yet to investigate the model of engine, My mate Ez has a small British one from the same era..... 8)
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Re: Polluted Nile.

Post by Hafiz »

Interesting. Your second photo doesn't expand so I can't see it.

What I do know that in the period 1900-40 the Lister (UK) stationary low rpm engine, diesel or kero I'm not sure, was widely used in Sudan to pump water from the Nile. Its a remarkably reliable engine and I think used in irrigation in this country - very loud. I saw some in Sudan that had been working out in the open for more than 50 years. From memory some bits were heavily engineered with steel/iron and some type of very basic water cooling system on top.

Who2 Most of the paucity of scientific research is on the surface water. Toshka had almost no/no research on the effect on subterranean and the current 1.5 million feddans project (a deal of it 150ks west by north west of Luxor) is based on thousand of artesian pumps (expensive) with no proper science let alone views about how climate change will affect the aquifer. Crackers.

I'm not aware of a single large study on the underground water and to do so would require hard work - thousands of drilling holes. The published speculation is that its bad/very bad and not just with salt. In Luxor they did do a lot of drilling quite a few years ago but their objective was very narrow - the water levels and salt and how these will damage the temples etc. Even after this work little or nothing was done.
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Re: Polluted Nile.

Post by Major Thom »

The most interesting thing is that it's everybody else's fault. Look at all the fouled up canals, dead animals, rubbish (Due to no Refuge collection) where does that go? Could it be the lead content has reached Cairo? Then again everything that happens is due to outside influence. A good post Hafiz but the answers from those that should be in charge is totally S---. :xx
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Re: Polluted Nile.

Post by crewmeal »

Having just returned from 6 weeks in Luxor including a couple of boat trips I found the poor river so polluted with rubbish both in Luxor and Aswan. There's a new take away in Aswan called Zooba next to MacDonalds and after EID I've never seen so much rubbish dumped into the river.

As they say 'God made The Nile, man will kill it'
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Re: Polluted Nile.

Post by John Landon »

I hate pollution of any kind, but these people are so far behind the times it almost beggars belief.
OK, one day they will catch up us, after all, it took a long time to get the Thames into a state where it could support aquatic life forms like fish again.
it was in 1957 the Thames river was categorised as biologically dead.
Now there are over 125 different species of fish in that river.
Of course people still dump crap in there, its reckoned about 300 tonnes of plastic and rubbish is cleaned out every year, but that means peopel are employed to do that, so perhaps Egypt's government can
see what needs to be done, given the rife unemployment in the land.

Historically rivers have been used as dumping grounds in cities, country folk are more respectful. in the countryside we are more aware of that old saying. What you put out is what you get back. ( one way or another )
In Egypt is seems what you put out floats away and is someone else's problem. :tk Problem is though, you **** *** Mother Nature she will find a way to **** you over and make you realise it was all your own doing.

Plus, all that fertile sediment generated is supposed to feed the land during the inundation, now the Aswan dam has it all stored up. Ideally that shoudl be re introduced into the river. or sold off to pay for the river to be cleaned.

Those 'Gypt's have got a lot of work to do, and quickly.. it took just under 20 years for the Thames to be able to breathe again.
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Re: Polluted Nile.

Post by Horus »

I agree with most of what you say regarding pollution, the problem with sediment is that it has mostly dropped out of suspension in the huge vastness of the lake and only the removal of the dam would change that or leave a fertile plain where the lake had once been. I suppose eventually (and maybe we are reaching that stage) the sediment will build up to such a level that the current water flow through the lake will just dislodge the latest deposit 'off the top' so to speak and not get any deeper, but without the yearly inundation it will just finish up in the delta or the Mediterranean.
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