How to Save the Nile
By Abdallah AbdelDayem
The Nile is polluted from all involved members. Whether it’s industrial waste, solid waste, leaked pesticides, or improper sanitation, the Nile suffers tremendously. Thus, action must be taken immediately before the situation becomes more dangerous or chronic.
“Right now, a lot of the poorer areas have access to extremely unhealthy water. The Nile has been polluted, we need stronger laws. It starts with the domestic use, but we have to move on to industrial use and agricultural use, because a lot of that waste is not regulated, and pollutes the Nile, which affects us all,” said Mahmoud El Rayes, a member of the water conservation campaign “water drop.”
Keeping tabs on industries has always been a problem in Egypt. Industries dump millions of tons of unfiltered contaminates into the Nile every year, according to the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights.
There are laws currently being applied by the government, according to Nader El Masry, a representative at the Ministry of water resources and irrigation.
“The factories that pollute the Nile are like the thieves. Who do the thieves steal?” El Masry said “It’s sometimes out of our control, but we always try and keep the situation to a minimum.”
The biggest problem that the Nile faces in terms of pollution is due to lack of proper sanitation in rural areas, said El Masry.
There isn’t enough money to build sanitation facilities in rural areas. However, there is a plan where each area can raise funds to help build proper sanitation facilities that can help improve the situation, added El Masry
However, El Masry admitted that this might not be a practical option, as each family would have to fund a large amount of money that they most likely would not be able to
“The current solutions are to apply tough regulations by the government, not imposed on the populous, because that’s not going to work. But imposed on the manufacturers and the industry that abuse our laws and abuse our Nile,” El Rayes said.
Another major problem that requires immediate addressing is the leakage of pesticides from surrounding crops, into the Nile. The pesticides can prove to be toxic, if improperly filtered.
Educating the farmers about the effects these pesticides may have on the quality of the Nile, is crucial, according to El Masry.
“The farmers like to increase the use of pesticides, and water, thinking that this would help increase their produce. However, this isn’t true, and these pesticides end up leaking into the Nile, causing further damage,” El Masry said.
Awareness about the current state of the Nile is an essential step towards curing it. However, the lack of information about how bad the current state of the Nile is, might prove to be a daunting challenge.
“We need to do more studies to see what sort of infections and toxicity that can happen from either swimming from the Nile river, or being in contact with water from the Nile river, or drinking from the Nile river,” said microbiologist, Rania Siam.
The Nile is exposed daily to unfiltered waste which may cause serious damage.
“We always try to maintain the ecosystem to its natural habitat […] when the nutrients increase, you don’t know what sort of fish live there, what sort of bacteria can live there, and this can definitely foster the growth of more undesired microbes and parasites,” said Rania Siam.
Diseases factor in majorly to the deterioration of the quality of the Nile, but is only a single problem in a river of problems.
“What we have to do is that we have to understand and admit that there is an administrative problem, so the government is involved, and there is a problem. And once we admit that we have to unite, move past that problem and try to figure out the solution, all of us together, and understand that we all share responsibility. It’s not only the government’s problem or the people’s problem, but at the end of the day we’re all going to pay for it,” said El Rayes.
The Nile’s current situation is disastrous, to say the least. However, that does not mean it isn’t fixable. With proper understanding of the situation, and increased awareness, action can easily be taken towards bettering the quality of the Nile.