El Quseir Residents Say Water Now Arrives Every 8 to 10 Days, With Families Buying It by the Jerrycan

Residents of El Quseir have renewed complaints about weak and irregular drinking water reaching their homes, with some districts now waiting up to ten days between pumping shifts, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The interval between pumping rounds has risen from seven days to eight, residents told the paper, and even when the scheduled slot arrives the water does not reach some houses in sufficient quantity. Ahmed Said said the pumping is not regular. Sayed Salah, who lives in the Amtidad Al-Amal area, said water does not reach their homes even after they wait for the announced time. One resident quoted by the paper put it plainly: "We're in Amtidad Al-Amal, we've been three days without water, and we've been waiting for it for eight days."

In the Shenshen area the complaint is pressure rather than timing. El-Sayed Yahya, a resident there, told Al-Masry Al-Youm the water arrives "very weak", adding that going without water and electricity in this heat is hard. Some families have fallen back on water tanker trucks, and a number bought water by the jerrycan over the past week, the paper reported.

Residents asked the drinking water and sanitation company and the town's executive bodies to check why pressure is dropping in some areas, to set a mechanism that keeps pumping regular and fairly distributed between districts, and to confirm the water actually reaches the targeted homes rather than simply recording that pumping started at the source.

What the company says

Major General Eng. Bahaa Abdel Moneim Sayed El-Ahl, head of the Red Sea Drinking Water and Sanitation Company, reviewed every stage of operation inside the El Quseir desalination plant, covering production rates, operating capacity and equipment efficiency, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.

He issued urgent directives to:

• raise operating efficiency and monitor the plant's output round the clock
• increase the volume of water produced so the number of days between pumping shifts can be cut
• intensify preventive maintenance on all units and equipment

He also said a new seawater desalination plant is to be built in El Quseir with a production capacity of 25,000 cubic metres a day, to meet rising demand and support the town's urban and tourism growth.

The report gives no date for that plant, no cost, and no target for how short the pumping interval should become. El Quseir's water problem is the same one this site reported along the coast earlier this month, when direct pumping was started to Hurghada's Mubarak 11 district on 9 September. For anyone living in or visiting El Quseir, the practical point is unchanged until the new plant exists: the tap runs on a rota, and the rota has been getting longer.