A project to install water lines to irrigate 100,000 feddans in Sinai will be implemented in 18 months instead of the projected three years, sending a message to those who accuse the State of neglecting development in the peninsula, Hamdi Kamel
The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has completed the urgent phase of the New Suez Canal siphon as an extension to the old Sarabiyum siphon. The project implemented by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority at a cost of LE175 million, includes installing four pipelines under the Suez Canal to transfer River Nile water to Sinai and is one of the most successful water projects in the current phase to extend water to more than 100,000 feddans to be planted in Sinai. It is all part of the Sinai development project with which the current government is cooperating.
Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Dr Hossam Moghazi said the giant siphon, the largest water project under the New Suez Canal, aims at providing irrigation water from Sinai’s channel and ensuring its extension to farmers in eastern Suez, the Bitter Lakes area and New Ismailia to irrigate about 100,000 feddans.
Establishing the Sarabiyum siphon was a dream come true, Dr Moghazi said, pointing to the irrigation of 40,000 in the eastern lakes area and 60,000 in east Suez on Sheikh Zayed Lake.
The project includes four large wells, each 60 metres deep and 28 metres in dimension, to receive and pump water. It also includes four horizontal tunnels, each 420 metres long and with a width of four metres and depth of 54 metres. These lie below the water level and underneath the Suez Canal at a depth of 16 metres in case of any expansion of deepening in the future.
In conformity with the duration of similar projects the siphon could take at least three years to be completed, but this should decrease to about 18 months, Dr Moghazi said, adding that the project began in September 2014. Despite the challenges facing the project from the very first in terms of limited timing and difficulties in reaching the site of the siphon , the Egyptian workers continued to move steadily ahead and completed the project as efficiently as it can be and as scheduled.
