New water station, reservoir inaugurated in Ruseifa

RUSEIFA — Water Minister Hazem Nasser on Tuesday inaugurated the Basateen Pump Station and Reservoir, built to meet the increasing demand in Zarqa’s Ruseifa District, 12km east of Amman.

The new facilities are part of the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) programme to rehabilitate Zarqa’s water and wastewater network. 

The project was carried out by the Millennium Challenge Account-Jordan (MCA-Jordan), a government-owned company set up in 2010 and funded by MCC, a bilateral US foreign aid agency that has also financed the new station.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by US Ambassador to Jordan Alice G. Wells and MCC Managing Director for Compact Operations Jonathan Brooks.

In a speech during the ceremony, Nasser said the $3 million project is part of the $275 million MCC Compact grant to Jordan, through which MCA-Jordan rehabilitated large parts of Zarqa Governorate’s water and wastewater system.

He said that MCA-Jordan’s projects in Zarqa and Ruseifa will be completed in early 2017 when the Jordan Water Company (Miyahuna), through a contract signed with the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ), will begin operating them.

The grant also helped in the expansion of As-Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant as well as the improvement of plumbing and the replacement of water meters for thousands of underprivileged families who are beneficiaries of the National Aid Fund. 

The project’s main goal is to help the country mitigate the growing impact of water scarcity, while eradicating poverty.

“The Basateen Pump Station and the new water and wastewater pipes alongside are providing over 500,000 citizens of Ruseifa with a much more regular supply of water. In the past, four pumps and leaky distribution networks failed to deliver water and dramatically reduced the ability of citizens and businesses to function,” Wells said at the ceremony. 

The new, fully automated pump station with four pumps and a 2,000 cubic metre reservoir, is providing faster and more regular delivery of water, which “means happier households and prosperous business, and this also contributes to Jordan’s water security”, the US ambassador added.

The station has been designed to guarantee the utmost energy efficiency with a 185-metre head, while its software restricts the operator’s role to monitoring and maintenance.

MCA-Jordan’s CEO Kamal Al Zoubi said the project reflected the company’s commitment to improving water quantity and quality for Ruseifa residents, who he said had already noticed a difference in water supply. 

Six sewer cleaning jet vehicles were also procured under the project, for WAJ in Zarqa, to help maintain the 300km wastewater network. 

The new equipment is intended to allow responsive, rather than preventative, maintenance of the sewer networks, thus prolonging the lifespan of the new networks.

The vehicles, which cost  $1 million, were financed by the savings achieved in the Compact programme in order to improve Zarqa’s environment.