The Jeddah Municipality maintains that Fatima Al-Saab, the girl who drowned at sea earlier this month, fell in the groundwater pumped at Al-Nawras roundabout and not near the sewage discharge pipe as claimed in a section of the media. In a statement issued Friday, the municipality said the groundwater is being pumped into the site as a result of the excavation works for setting up a sanitary drainage network to cover Jeddah Governorate and is being carried out by companies that have contracts with the National Water Company. Fatima's body was found last week after a search operation that continued for several days. The municipality said as a result of the on-going excavation works by the National Water Company in different parts of Jeddah, it is necessary to get rid of 150,000 to 200,000 cubic meters of groundwater daily compared to 7,000 cubic meters only before the start of the sanitary drainage network project to prevent the occurrence of overflows in the city and the resulting formation of breeding grounds for epidemics and diseases. As a temporary solution to get rid of this groundwater until the completion of the network, the contractors of the excavation companies have been permitted to use the storm-water drainage networks of the mayoralty that is connected with the feeding station in Al-Zahra District constructed in 1995 for draining groundwater from excavation works. This water is not pumped to the sea, but it flows naturally to the sea off Al-Nawras using the downward slope toward the sea, the municipality statement said. It added that before release into the mayoralty's network, the water is filtered of stones, soil, sand, mud, and all suspension materials in conformity with the standards of the Presidency of Meteorology and Environmental Protection.
