Sludge off Jumeirah: DM to take action against culprits
The Dubai Municipality is probing the cause and effects of the leakage of sludge into the sea that discoloured the waters off Jumeirah beach over the weekend.
The brownish-orange slick had covered a vast area of the marina at Dubai Offshore Sailing Club (DOSC) prompting the authorities to conduct tests on the impact of the pollution and to find out how it occurred.
The sludge apparently reached the sea through the sewage network of the Municipality, most likely through one of the four storm water drains that open into the sea at the mouth of DOSC’s marina.“It looks like it is illegally discharged to the network and from there it came to the sea. We have collected the sample and submitted it to the laboratory for testing. When the results come we will get to know the contents and nature of the sludge,” he told Khaleej Times on Sunday.
Based on the same theory, the Municipality is probing how the culprits managed to dump the sludge into its storm water drainage network. Hassan hoped that the Sewage Network Department would find out the culprits soon. “We expect to get the lab test results from the Dubai Central Laboratory within a week,” he said.
Salem bin Mesmar, Assistant Director-General of Health, Safety and Environment Monitoring Sector at Dubai Municipality, said the civic body had successfully curtailed illegal dumping of sewage after it clamped down on violators in the previous years.
The Municipality had also announced hefty fines on trucks that illegally dumped sewage in the emirate, four years ago. Due to illegal discharge of sewage, the levels of bacteria off the coast near DOSC had reportedly reached near-toxic levels in one instance in 2008.
“It is not the first time that illegal dumping has happened. Our departments are strictly monitoring the Al Quoz industrial areas from where the network goes to the sea. Unfortunately, when something like this happens, they do it at late night or on holidays. They (violators) don’t want to take it to the proper place because it costs them money,” he noted.
“We are going to sit with the sewage network department again and work closely to see what more we can do to prevent such things,” Mesmar added.
Hassan called upon the public to notify any cases of pollution, discolouration, mortality of fish or any sea creatures to the Municipality’s toll free hotline number 800900.
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