Abu Dhabi, UAE – Within two years Abu Dhabi is on course to reuse 100% of its municipal wastewater for agricultural, forestry and golf course irrigation.
As part of the billion dollar Strategic Tunnel Enhancement Programme (STEP) infrastructure programme, three new pipelines will be added, connecting the remaining areas of the Emirate State to the wastewater network.
Speaking to WWi magazine on the sidelines of the International Water Summit, Alan Thomson, managing director of ADSSC (Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company) said that the three additional pipeline projects are being tendered, with one back this week.
After construction and commissioning, the pipelines are expected to come online in the first quarter of 2019, enabling Abu Dhabi to collect and recycle 100% of its wastewater.
Costing $1.9 billion and started in 2008, STEP includes a 41-kilometre long sewer tunnel and also 43 km of smaller diameter new link sewers (watch video interview).
Tripling Abu Dhabi’s sewerage network, the system will provide for an average wastewater flow of 800,000 m3/day, with an ultimate capacity of 1.7 million m3/day by 2030.
Thomson told WWi that discussions were still ongoing between Abu Dhabi authorities as to who owns the treated effluent.
Abu Dhabi was previously treating and reusing 60% of its generated wastewater, with the remaining discharged to the sea. It was a lack of further infrastructure that prevented the State collecting and reusing the remaining 40%.
The initial target was for Abu Dhabi to hit the 100% reuse rate by 2018, so the expected date is later than expected.
Last year ADSSC had reported that the link sewers portion of the project had been completed (read article).
The video interview with Alan Thomson can be seen above.
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