Abdulrahman Al-Ali Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Makkah Emir Prince Khaled Al-Faisal was briefed Tuesday by Abdullah Al-Hussayen, minister of water and electricity and chairman of the board of directors of the National Water Company (NWC), on numerous projects the company implemented in different parts of the region. After completing the installation of a sewage system in Al-Sharayeh neighborhood of Makkah, the NWC has begun working on other projects. Over the next five years, the company will complete a project to install 157,000 sewage connections in the holy city. Prince Khaled was briefed on the company's projects in Taif to increase the storage capacity of water to 1.2 million cubic meters from 630,000 cubic meters. Over 97,000 sewage connections have been given to households in Taif covering a large part of highly-populated areas. In Jeddah, the NWC completed the installation of 25,000 sewage connections and will give a further 207,000 connections by the end of 2015. It also began construction on a waste water treatment plant, the largest in the Middle East, with a capacity of 500,000 cubic meters. More than 40 percent of highly-populated areas have benefited from the increase in pumping desalinated water to homes. The company is planning to increase the strategic storage of water to 6 million cubic meters over the next few years. The current storage capacity stands at 1.5 million cubic meters. The company also reduced the level of surface water by 90 percent in 18 Jeddah neighborhoods including Briman, Quwaizah, Kilo 14, Al-Matbouli and Al-Olya. More efforts will be exerted to reduce surface water levels in other neighborhoods in the future. The minister also presented Prince Khaled with a global award for the best environmental project won by the NWC for drying up the Al-Musk Lake in Jeddah and another global award after the company was ranked the second best global water company.
