Journal, May 23, 2006 (edited June 5, 2006)—Gaza
Photos: Gaza-5
Other photos and writing
Dispatches from Gaza - 5
(Water)
By Skip Schiel
The water tour was exclusively about wastewater, its lack of full treatment. Our first site was just south of the city, near the dismantled Netzarim settlement along Beach Road. Here sewage spews from a pipe into the sea, nearby fishers are plying the waters because fish tend to accumulate in the nutrient-rich but heavily polluted effluent. The stench was unbearable, and completely unvisualizable, one of the key problems with visual art—how express odor?
Why partly treated? Later we visited the only treatment plant for Gaza, collecting some 70% of the city's wastewater and treating it only in settling ponds. No secondary treatment, for a variety of reasons which provide a window into the reality of the siege. The bacterial digester is not functioning because it is undergoing maintenance. Using plastic baffles from a US company, it allows the generation of bacteria which digest some of the toxins. The crew is now cleaning this monstrosity, an enormously messy, dirty, expensive job.
In addition, needed parts and supplies are often blocked by the closure, not allowed thru Karni commercial checkpoint. Funding cuts complicate the picture. And finally, local opposition to the plant has forced relocation to a site near the eastern border, but there security is an issue.
We also visited the famed Wadi Gaza, where untreated sewage flows into the sea. Another despicable stench. We walked thru the mess on the ground, all dried, but no doubt laced with deathly poisons. In one of these pools people have been raising fish. The municipality is trying to block this self-destructive entrepreneurial effort by dumping loads of debris around the pond. People are illegally building on lands near the wadi and digging wells into the polluted aquifer. The lack of effective municipal authority is another element in the Gazan dynamic. There are laws, but no enforcement. So people make use of the chaos to confiscate land, even when close to poisoned terrain, and dig wells, even when into polluted water bodies.
Not a happy or pretty or appealing or promising picture. But I'm gratified to be here, seeing with my own eyes, smelling with my own nose, stepping with my own feet, and hearing with my own ears the reality that people here face daily.
One possible minor consequence of this on the scene work is my diarrhea. It hit me this morning, I could feel it building yesterday, hopefully it is short lived and mild. No big deal, compared with the suffering most experience on a much larger scale.
I have to muse: what is on my sandals and socks, what do I carry into my house, into my bed, if I don't bathe, into my body?
—Gaza, May 23, 2006
LINKS
"Water and Conflict in the Gaza Strip," Trade & Environment Database
"Health Effect Due to Poor Wastewater Treatments in Gaza Strip," Amani Alfarra and Sami Lubad
"Wadi Gaza: Struggling for a Sustainable Palestinian Environment," Isabelle Humphries, May 22, 2006
"Virtual Water Trade as a Policy Instrument of Achieving Water Security in Palestine," Yasser H. Nassar
Other papers related to water at the Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information |
