Al Ghazaali Sewage Pumping Station, Baghdad, 16th May 2002, with Muhammed Hudaya, Senior Engineer

Al Ghazaali sewage pumping station graphically illustrated some of the problems of the sewage network. Designed to pump sewage and remove some of the solid material, it suffers from equipment breakdowns which limit its work.

1. Two of the four pumps are not working; replacements have been ordered, but staff were not expecting them anytime soon. Thus the station is only working at about 60% capacity, and so cannot process all the dirty water it needs to.

2. Breakdowns occur typically 4 times a month. It usually takes about 8 hours to fix the problem. During station downtime, sewage spills out into the street and / or backs up into people’s homes. (“It comes into the bathroom….. maybe even into the bedroom!” Engineer Hudaya had a great sense of humour!)

3. An adequate back-up generator had only arrived 3 months ago, for use during power cuts. Besides power cuts, the operation of the station is impaired by variable frequency and voltage surges, which can also damage equipment.

4. Removal of solid material, from behind a grill, is essential to avoid a blow-out downstream. The automatic equipment is not working and can’t be fixed for lack of parts. So hapless workers must descend into the pit to manually scoop out the debris from behind the grill. Not only foul, but highly dangerous work. Last year 3 workers were overcome by methane and other gases; two died.

Al Ghazaali is a relatively small station, processing sewage from 2 areas of Baghdad: Al Aramiya, and Risafaa. There are other smaller pumping stations between homes and Al Ghazaali – these stations also suffer breakdowns, with similar results. After leaving Al Ghazaali, the dirty water is pumped to a separate treatment station, which should clean the water to a high standard. However the treatment station stopped working 2 years ago, so the sewage is simply discharged to river. Eng. Hudaya estimated that less than 20% of Baghdad’s sewage is properly treated before discharge. This is an obvious problem for settlements to the south of Baghdad, which use the Tigris as their source of drinking water.

All information is based on observations and discussions during the visit. We were not able to independently check this, but the UN, UNICEF, and other agencies, report severe problems with the sewage network.

UNICEF report that ‘one third of the population (in urban areas) is served by piped sewage systems with treatment plants, and the rest rely on septic tanks aided by fleets of sewage tankers.’ [1] Currently, ‘half a million toms of raw sewerage are dumped into fresh water bodies every day [in Iraq], with most treatment plants malfunctioning due to lack of spares, equipment, proper maintenance and skilled manpower. The impact of power cuts on the water and santiation sector is considerable: …clogged sewers, back-flow of sewerage into living quarters, and disease.’[2]

1. UNICEF, January 2002
BRIEFING. UNICEF Iraq South /Centre. Water and Sanitation

2. UNICEF, April 2002
Profile of Children and Women in Iraq and UNICEF Country Programme of Cooperation.1. Situation of Children and Women. Revised 15 April 2002.

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