Baghdad inaugurates seven wastewater treatment units in Rustamiyah

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Baghdad Mayor Ammar Musa on Thursday opened a facility consisting of seven wastewater treatment units in the city's Rustamiyah district, part of an expansion of the existing local treatment plant. The new units add a daily treatment capacity of 105,000 cubic meters, Musa said. Musa said work on additional wastewater projects is continuing across the capital. The 200,000-cubic-meter Hisnah facility and the 151,000-cubic-meter Buwaib expansion are in the bidding and implementation stages, while the survey and design work for a 1.2 million-cubic-meter facility serving the Police Canal line has been completed, according to the mayor. Once the projects are brought online, Baghdad is expected to be removed from the classification of cities discharging polluted water into the Tigris River, Musa said. The activation of the Buwaib expansion will also remove the Karkh side of Baghdad from the pollution list, he added. The mayor said the projects will continue until the capital is fully cleared of environmental pollution.