Lake Mariout, which lies southwest of Alexandria, has long been a victim of pollution and mismanagement. For a century, waste has been pumped into its waters and its shallow waters have been claimed by tourism developments. The outlook for the lake has not brightened in the aftermath of the revolution – rather the destruction has accelerated.

The lake has shrunk from 60 to 17 thousand acres over decades. Every year, tonnes of fish are killed by oil companies’ waste products, leaving the fishing industry struggling to survive.

Lake Mariout, which lies southwest of Alexandria, has long been a victim of pollution and mismanagement. For a century, waste has been pumped into its waters and its shallow waters have been claimed by tourism developments. The outlook for the lake has not brightened in the aftermath of the revolution – rather the destruction has accelerated.

The lake has shrunk from 60 to 17 thousand acres over decades. Every year, tonnes of fish are killed by oil companies’ waste products, leaving the fishing industry struggling to survive.

The destruction kicked off a century ago when the lake was pumped with waste water from Alexandria. Since then successive governments have failed to halt the industrial contamination and the growing sprawl of tourist buildings across the lake’s shallow marshland waters.

Revolution helps investors

The January 25 revolution, with its chaotic political climate and lack of political scrutiny, enabled investors to corner bigger stakes in Lake Mariout.

“The Lake has been looted and stolen over the past thirty years,” surmised Ahmad Khamis, a researcher at Alexandria Agricultural College. “In the aftermath of the Revolution, about 2,000 acres were filled in by a top businessman, without official authorization, to construct a tourist resort. His action went unhampered, thanks to the apathy and corruption of the concerned officials.”

Politicians have also exploited the lake. During Major General Adel Labib’s tenure as Governor of Alexandria, parts of it were offered as gifts to investors and businessmen, Khamis said. The Governor allocated one section of the 6000- acre basin to the Western Treatment Plant, operating under River Port Company owned by a minister from the former regime, who took the land without paying a penny.

Fishermens’ plight

Aboard a small fishing boat and accompanied by Hajj Qadri Abdel-Salam, a 75-year-old fishermen from Lake Mariout, a Correspondents reporter toured the lake. The dark murky water was covered with oil slicks, pollutants and waste from nearby companies. “Every day trucks fill large areas of the Lake, and when we ask why, the answer is ‘we are building housing units for the youth to help them cope with life…’ but of course, they use these words to silence us,” said Hajj Qadri.

After the January 25 Revolution, hundreds of acres of the lake have been leveled and rubbish and construction site debris has been dumped in the water, Qadri said, adding that he was increasingly catching dead fish.

Hamdi Saadawi, another fisherman, went to jail for selling contaminated fish, although he argued that he had no means to test the fish. Saadawi stopped working as a fisherman two years ago when he found that the lake contained rotten fish, killed by oil residuals from nearby companies.

Package of development

General Osama al-Fouly, Governor of Alexandria defended the political response to the lake’s disastrous environmental record. He told Correspondents that a package of development, real-estate and investment projects would, in the long-run, benefit the lake.

General al-Fouly said that the clear-up of the lake was being assisted by professors from the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries at Alexandria University and the General Authority for Lake Fisheries. These efforts were part of a plan designed to boost the annual amount of fish caught from 8,000 to 20,000 tonnes.

But al-Fouly failed to outline a timetable to tackle the lake’s problems, meaning Mariout Lake residents and fishermen will be kept waiting for the foreseeable future.

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