MUDAWARA - In three-and-a-half years, Amman is expected to be receiving the long-awaited water from Disi, a rich aquifer with high-quality water that will provide the growing capital with 100 million cubic metres (mcm) a year.
At a cost of $1 billion, the project is undertaken by GAMA, the Turkish winner of the latest bid to implement the project, which was inaugurated yesterday by Prime Minister Nader Dahabi, deputising for His Majesty King Abdullah. The event took place in this desert town near the border with Saudi Arabia.
At the inauguration ceremony, Minister of Water and Irrigation Raed Abu Saud said the water situation in Jordan entails a huge challenge that cannot be ignored, highlighting the need to maintain a balance between the need for water for drinking, industry and agriculture, stressing that priority goes for securing potable water in a country of about six million and growing by more than 3 per cent annually.
The country, which is on the list of 10 water poorest nations in the world, has over the decades been host to waves of refugees, in addition to half-a-million Iraqis who fled the war zone in the past five years.
The project is one of six strategic plans initiated by the Water Ministry to address the country's water deficit, which currently stands at 12.7mcm a year, a figure the ministry hopes to cut down to 5.5mcm through the 48 artesian wells that have been put into service this year.
Abu Saud also referred to the proposed canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, which would in the long run supply the Kingdom with desalinated water, in addition to its basic goal of saving the Dead Sea environment.
In remarks to The Jordan Times, the minister said GAMA would need 45 days to mobilise its teams and equipment and start digging, noting that upon completion, the mega-scheme would add more incentives to attract investments to the Kingdom.
As part of Disi Water Conveyance Project, 45 water wells will be dug, in addition to nine standby wells. Applying the BOT (build, operate and transfer) formula, water will be carried by pipes over 325km from the aquifer. The same pipelines are expected to be also used to convey desalinated water from the Red-Dead Canal in case the project is implemented.
World Bank officials have recently said in an interview with The Jordan Times that the canal is one of four options on the drawing board to save the shrinking Dead Sea. Feasibility and environmental impact studies are under way.
GAMA, under the deal with the government, will transfer the ownership of the project to Jordan in 25 years.
The scheme's implementation was scheduled for July 2007, but due to the sharp increase in the prices of steel and energy, GAMA presented modifications on the price of water and the estimated total cost of the project.
The estimated cost of the project rose by 12.8 per cent, from JD622 million to JD702 million, while the price of water went up from 850 fils per cubic metre to 872.5 fils.
The project, deemed as a key solution for the country's annual water deficit, has faced several obstacles since the first tender was floated in 2001. GAMA won the bid in September last year.
By Hana Namrouqa
© Jordan Times 2008
