Decentralising wastewater treatment ‘will reduce burden on Tubli Plant’

Decentralisation efforts in the wastewater treatment sector, is gradually easing the issues faced at the Tubli Wastewater Treatment Plant, according to an expert.

The efforts to decentralise the wastewater treatment sector has benefitted the Tubli Plant and the area in general, said Vice President of the Gulf Water Sciences and Technology Association (WSTA) and Chairman of its Scientific Committee and Professor of Water Resources at the College of Graduate Studies at Arabian Gulf University (AGU), Dr Waleed Khalil Zubari.

However, solving the issue entirely is still a mammoth task as decades of waste have accumulated in the area having taken the load for the entire country in all those years, he said. “In Tubli, the capacity has not been enough, so decentralisation efforts were needed.

The government has started to decentralise with Muharraq being an example of this. “The wastewater in Muharraq now does not come to Manama and this helps. From my understanding, Salman Town will also be decentralised; it will have its own wastewater plant, so there will be no overloading on Tubli.

“The loading to Tubli will be only from the locations that it is collecting the water from. If this policy of decentralisation continues it will ease the burden greatly.”

“The problem of wastewater is different to that of drinking water. The wastewater unlike drinking water supply has zero cost recovery. “To have zero cost recovery means that it has to rely on government budget allocation, so with the financial constraints faced by the government it may not get the priority it needs so the waste water sector may lag behind.