Water resources policy and administrative management

Introduction El Mahaba Society for Development and Environment (MSDE) is a well established non governmental organization founded in 1945, though the current name was introduced in 2000. Since its establishment MSDE has been involved in a variety of activities that all centre on family care and helping needy families. Some of the main activities of MSDE are: Sustainable village development The Introduction of clean potable water to 56 homes Environment day Illiteracy campaigns Payment of school fees for poor pupils and students In the present project, MSDE is involved in introducing a grey water treatment facility at the village of Gaafar, located in one of the outlaying districts of El Fashn city. Characteristics of Gaafar Gaafar is located on the outskirts of El Fashn, one of the major centres of Bani Souif governorate. The village has a population of about 6000 inhabitants. Agriculture is the dominant activity of almost 90% of the village population, while 10 % of the population are junior civil servants or work as construction and decoration technicians.The village is supplied with clean potable water and electricity service. El Fashn city council, located in El Fashn is the governing body, as Gaafar is considered as one of the districts of the El Fashn city. Sanitation at Gaafar, A Generic Profile Gaafar has no wastewater treatment facilities. For a long time the vast majority of the houses had not been fitted with toilets. People had to defecate in the open, causing some serious health problems, especially for women who tended to refrain from defecation until late at night. *Environmental Impact Assessment Unit, Suez Canal University, Ismailia, Egypt Community development organizations, mainly, the Evangelist Society and MSDE have more recently provided many of the houses with toilets, and at the present time the majority of the homes have toilets. Most houses have some type of septic tanks for which there is municipal waste collection. However, these septic tanks are mostly bottomless (not sealed) allowing wastewater to infiltrate the groundwater, causing serious pollution to groundwater resources. The Project objectives are: 1.Collection and treatment of municipal waste water serving 400 families. 2.Reuse of the treated water as irrigation water 3.Improving environmental awareness in the community 4.Reducing environmental pollution resuted from throwing out used water in streets 5.keeping and preservating clean water sources and making use of used water in irrigation after being treated through simple technology.

Egypt