Baghdad municipality advances wastewater treatment expansion projects

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Baghdad municipality is pressing ahead with strategic projects to expand the city's wastewater treatment capacity, the municipality's general secretary, Ammar Musa Kadim, said during a site visit to ongoing works in the capital. Kadim described sewage treatment as one of the institution's top priorities and said concrete investments have moved forward since he took office. The municipality is preparing to commission seven treatment units with a combined daily design capacity of 105,000 cubic meters under the Rustumiya project, which has been under development for two years. Work has also entered the implementation stage on the Khadhra (Hensa) Station project on the Rusafa side of the city, designed to handle 200,000 cubic meters per day. Further projects include preparations for the second expansion tender of the Buwaytha facility on the Karkh side, with a capacity of 351,000 cubic meters per day, and the Shurta Canal project in Rusafa, which would handle 1.4 million cubic meters daily and is awaiting financing approval. Officials said these represent the most comprehensive wastewater treatment investments since the early 1980s. The capital, home to roughly 10 million people, will see continued infrastructure investment aimed at reducing the volume of untreated water reaching the Tigris and improving environmental and public health conditions, according to the municipality.