Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — The National Water Company (NWC) has assured the governor that it will supply Jeddah with 2 million cubic meters of water by the summer. A source said NWC's Chief Executive Officer Loay Al-Musallam met with Jeddah Governor Prince Mishal Bin Majed on Monday and assured him of the water supply. "The National Water Company is implementing the first phase of the strategic water storage project. As part of the project plan, the company will build new cisterns with a total cost of SR760 million. The cisterns will be supplied with 2 million cubic meters of water," said the source. The source also said the company plans to complete the first phase by this summer. "There is a shortage of water in Jeddah. The people of Jeddah will be very pleased once the first phase of the project is complete. The governor and the company executive manager discussed the logistics of the implementation of the project," said the source. NWC's Al-Musallam said the 66 percent of the first phase work has been completed. "The need for more water storage came as a plea from the people of Jeddah city. We had to devise a plan to expand the storage of Jeddah. It was an emergency plan that we had to devise but we are up to the challenge," said Muslim. He also said the project is almost complete in Al-Faisaliyah District. "We have supplied the district with 1 million cubic meters of water by building four concrete and armed cisterns, each cistern has the capacity for 250,000 cubic meters of water. The total cost of these four cisterns is SR451 million," said Muslim. He also said the entire project entails supplying the city with 4 million cubic meters of water. The NWC has constructed, developed and qualified 9 wastewater treatment plants in three cities of Makkah region for increasing their capacity from 540,000 cubic meters to about 1.5 billion cubic meters daily; and increasing their efficiency by using triple treatment method. The building of environment services system in southern Jeddah has been completed by constructing and operating Al-Khomrah-4 plant with the capacity of 250,000 cubic meters daily, requalifying Al-Khomrah-3 plant with the capacity of 140,000 cubic meters daily and Al-Khomrah Al-Senaiyah plant with the capacity of 50,000 cubic meters daily. Thus the total treatment capacity in Jeddah has reached 1.050 million cubic meters daily.
