Bahr El-Baqar Wastewater Treatment Plant

Project Description:

One of the largest agricultural wastewater treatment plants in the world. It is located 10 km south of Port Sai’d tunnels in Sinai, 17 km east of Al-Qantara city.It is considered one of the most important projects that aim to develop the Sinai Peninsula to leverage its natural resources. The project will contribute to the reclamation of 456,000 feddans (1 feddan = 4,500 m2) by recycling and using agricultural, industrial and sewage wastewater, which will be diverted from the western to the eastern bank under the Suez Canal. Upon treatment, all water will be dispensed in Sheikh Jaber’s Canal.

The daily capacity of Bahr El-Baqar Wastewater Treatment Plant is estimated at 5.6 million cubic meters. The plant operated within Bahr El-Baqar’s drain water system, where the total number of cultivated land amounts to 400,000 feddans in Sinai.

The plant is built over 155 feddans, or 650,000 square meters, on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal all the way to the south of Port Sai’d city, approximately 27 km away.

Water will be diverted from the west bank (Al-Salam siphon) to the eastern bank under the Suez Canal through two existing siphons. Four main lines-with a diameter of 3,800 mm (2 lines per siphon) - will transfer water from the exposed siphon located out the plant’s borders (that amounts to almost 750 meters) to the entry canal inside the project (length of almost 586 meters).

The plant operates through 4 units of water treatment, where each unit amounts to a capacity of 1.4 million cubic meters per day.

Bahr El-Baqar Wastewater Treatment Plant project’s main components are:

• Two canals: intake canal with a total length of 587 meters within the borders of the plant, final wastewater treated channel, outlet canal with a total length of 895 square meters;

• Four main courses of wastewater treatment, which include: water intake pumping building, rapid/slow mixing basins, sedimentation basins, filters with discs, ozone basins and chloride tanks;

• Two sludge treatment units, where each unit consists of: sludge pumping building, sedimentation basins, mechanical drying buildings, solar units for sludge drying;

• Sedimentation and services support buildings, consisting of: chemical injection buildings, chloride injection buildings, ozone generation buildings, supporting generators building, electric boards and transfer buildings, workshop building, chemical substances storage building, workers/employees building, mosque and the main administration building.

The amount of treated water per year will amount to 2 billion cubic meters, while the amount of hydrated sludge per year amounts to 460,000 tons.
Project’s Treatment Units:

Phase 1- Pre-Treatment Phase:

• Intake building, that consists of the refineries and intake pumps, where the coarse and fine refineries operate on removing all small and large planktons, where water will flow to the following phase of treatment;

• The intake pumps capacity designs amount to 1.4 million cubic meters per day, where every building contains 5 pumps (4 operating and 1 substitute) with each pump’s capacity amounts to 4 cubic meters per second.

Phase 2- Water Treatment Phase:

• Water treatment for initial sedimentation by adding materials that would adjust pH levels and help in the formation of flocculants and sedimentation in the bottom of sedimentation basins, for example: sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide, ferrous chloride and polymer on sedimentation work and the formation of large particles from the suspended solids inside the mixing and settling tanks. Then moved into the lamella sedimentation tanks that cover 11, 600 square meters, used in the sedimentation tanks and pipes technology for a more efficient process;

• Triple disc filters, where 120 filters are used in the project, with a designed capacity of 1,992 cubic meters per hour per filter. The filtering surface amounts to 32, 800 square meters of fine polyester membrane and a filter size of 10 microns in order to achieve the highest quality and standards of purified irrigation water.

Phase 3- Post Treatment Phase:

• Includes the water sterilization process by injecting ozone or chlorine. The sterilization and disinfection of water before entering contact tanks for purification, in order to control water smell. Ozone, hence, is injected to eradicate all parasites, bacteria and all harmful organic substances from the water. In order to reduce chemical oxygen consumed “COD” to reach the desired ratio of outflowing water sterilization occurs, followed by the final product being exited to Sheikh Jaber Canal.