Mujib Dam water to be channelled to Karak

AMMAN — Karak Governorate’s annual water supply is set to increase by 5 million cubic metres (mcm) before next summer under a new mega-project, officials said on Tuesday.

An 18.5-kilometre-long pipeline will be established to channel water from the Mujib Dam to Karak, situated 140km south of Amman, according to officials at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

Established in 2003, the dam has a maximum capacity of 29.8mcm.

Under the project, some 5mcm of Mujib Dam water will be conveyed via the pipeline to the Shihan Reservoir, which has the capacity to store 1,500 cubic metres, Water Minister Hazem Nasser said in a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times.

Six submersible water pumps with a pumping capacity of 300 cubic metres per hour will be installed as part of the project, which also entails the construction of two reservoirs to store 500 cubic metres of desalinated water before pumping it to the Shihan Reservoir in Karak, Nasser added.

Water Ministry Spokesperson Omar Salameh explained that 500 cubic metres of Mujib Dam water will be desalinated per hour and distributed to Karak to ease water shortage in the governorate.

“State-of-the-art technologies will be applied in this project, under which water will be desalinated and treated according to the advanced ultrafiltration system,” Salameh told The Jordan Times.

The ministry will float the project’s tender before the end of this month, according to Nasser, who said the Water Authority of Jordan will supervise the implementation, which will be carried out by local contractors.

“Actual construction of the project will commence early next year. Pumping water to Karak residents will commence after six months,” Nasser added, noting that the new water allocations will be available before the start next year’s holy month of Ramadan, during which water demand surges.

Nasser said the Kuwaiti government is funding the JD5 million project.

Karak has a population of over 170,000, according to the Department of Statistics. The governorate is home to several of the country’s main wells, streams and dams. Water per capita in the governorate stands at 165 litres per day, according to the Water Ministry, which described the amount as above average.

However, 60 per cent of the supplied water is lost through leakage due to violations and deteriorated water networks, pipes and pumping stations.

Several infrastructure projects are currently under way to extend new water and wastewater networks in Karak, where two main water pumping stations are also being renovated to reduce loss and improve water supply.