The Damietta crisis is still on , the sit in is not suspended yet the protesters everyday they open more routes to the Damietta port. The people of Sananiya village that located directly besides the MOPCO factory have cut the highway with Ras El Bar after opening it for 4 hours. There is a delegation from Damietta that will come and join the protesters at Tahrir square after couple of hours in Cairo.
Ok the MOPCO PR machine is trying to do its best to amend its image , today they published a big ad asking SCAF not to shut the factory. Each paragraph of the
On Wednesday a group of activists including follow blogger Lilian Wagdy went to Damietta , to the factories’ zone to take samples from the surrounding environment to test it in order to know if there
Lilian took photos from there and they are speaking about something abnormal there. These images are unedited “Click on the images to zoom”
These are lemon trees in some polluted pound in Damietta near the factories
This is how the dates look like near the factories , it can’t be eaten.
Dead Mango leaves near the factories
Sample of the mud at the MOPCO factory , I do not think this looks like normal mud.
MOPCO wastes in the sea directly , do you remember the report published in Al Mal newspaper ?
What is that white substance on the soil besides MOPCO ?
Here is the full gallery.
Adam Makary , Al Jazeera International producer went to Damietta from 3 days ago and he was told by the fishermen how they find dead fish all the time because of the factories. He took that snapshot below with his mobile phone
This video from RNN was uploaded on November 15th showing the farmers who own the reclamation project land near the MOPCO factory with their polluted damaged crops. Filmed by Mohamed Dabbas
Another video , this time from Al Masry Al Youm , where you can hear the complaints of locals at El Sananiya village that located directly besides the MOPCO factory. Wait till the end of the clip where you can see clearly the dead fish.
Can someone please tell me what all this mean ? Does not it mean that the locals of Sananiya and Damietta who are being attacked and defamed in the media can be right ??
In the previous posts about Damietta crisis , I got comments from the kind “You should not speak about pollution when your country is filthy and full of garbage” and “start cleaning your streets”
I hate to say but it is not the people again , it is the government and garbage mafia that turning the country like that and we want our country to be clean with better recycling projects and so but guess what !? We will not stop. Last month simple Egyptians started a movement across the country in Cairo , Alexandria and Giza and left their garbage at their local councils door steps to send a powerful message that they are paying bills for their garbage and yet it is left to decay.
This is our opportunity to fix our country. What the people of Damietta are currently doing is extremely important and I will not let anyone insult them or mock them.
Our Nile is polluted , our air is polluted , our food is polluted , our soil is polluted but insh Allah this will not continue forever.
My friend, you still have no idea what yOu are talking about, and you are only making the world laugh at you. If you want to be taken seriously, you should talk about other points that have been brought up by other people. Why are there are 10 other plants in Egypt exactly like the one in Damietta, and they are proven to be safe and clean. No, you only show some stupid picture of dead fish or whatever, with no Proof at all when or where it was taken. Like I said, stop reporting from only the side of he protesters, and maybe the world will stop laughing at your stupid protest-which is only hurting the Egyptian people- not helping. Wake up!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I can comment on is the mango tree photo.
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with pollution. This is caused by an insect and I had it on a few of my mango trees. It is easily fixed by spraying with insecticide spray and has nothing to do with the factory because my trees had this and are near no factory. It's a little white insect.
Egyptians have a very bad attitude to filth.
ReplyDeleteThey need to start by educating every single child not to throw a single piece of trash on the streets. Egyptians are by far the worst nation for being unhygienic. All those lazy men sitting outside cafes doing nothing at all should all be out with brooms cleaning their environment but they are not. I have never seen such filthy people. They have no idea about hygiene. I see Egyptian women all the time who never flush the toilets in restaurants and I watch as they adjust their hijabs but never wash their hands after using the toilet. I even watched one Niqabi come out of a toilet and still had one glove on her hand. the other hand she put under a tap with no soap for about 2 seconds and then put the glove back on. Absolutely disgustingly filthy!
Sorry but you really have no clue about agriculture yet you're posting these pictures as undeniable proof of pollution caused by that factory....
ReplyDeleteyes we are filthy and dirty people we throw garbage in the street even some people urinate in the streets but don't we deserve a chance to start living in a clean and unpolluted enviroment all the above comments mean only one thing: you shouldn't complain you don't deserve to live in a clean country and this is totally unfair .just support US or shut up. and by the way zeinobia keep on the good work ,God bless you dear.
ReplyDeleteRelax ppl !!
ReplyDeleteThis is just a humble blog with no professional assistance unlike your local news agency with an agenda and factual info., but is rather managed by an amateur who just like anyone else that wants the best for her/his country. Don't blame the owner for criticizing everything and anything cause she isn't the first nor last to do so. It is merely her own point of view no matter what in the end. You are more than welcome to read for your own pleasure, but you should also keep in mind this is democracy. You express your opinion in any way or form as long as it doesn't physically hurt others and within the descent context of expression. Good Luck Everyone
This is our opportunity to fix the country by thinking logically and treating the subject of pollution and the environment on scientific basis, not emotions and hype of politics.
ReplyDeleteAny manufacturing process produces waste. Not only chemical plant, but even beverage and food processing plants. The waste (liquid, solid or gas) is sampled, and monitored. If on-line analyzers detect emissions higher than regulatory limit, an alarm is produced.
Before demolishing the plant, an accurate analysis of water and soil to proof that the chemicals affected the environment are traced back to the plant. There could be industrial solutions to mitigate waste and save the plant from closure. Decision to retrofit or close should be based on trusted data and not demonstrations or vote.
Egypt needs expansion in industry to create jobs. Dealing with environmental challenges is a price to pay. Closing the plant, or closing the road, doesn’t help these challenges.
Now, would plant lemon trees in a pond??? certainly not MOPCO. It is some farmer who is using polluted water from a sewerage canal and that is the reason for the pollution - that's it.
ReplyDeleteI am from France and when I was young around 20 years old I visited Tunisia and Egypt around 1970 whilst studying philosophy to learn more about Muslim philosophers like El-Kindy, Avicenna,Al Farabi, and in particular Ibn-Khladoun who I found facinating and on whom I did my thesis. I admit that these philosophers were the original inspiration to leading Western Philosophers who studied Aristotle and Plato relying on the translation movement, and Ibn-Khaldoun was the guy who lived both in Tunisia and Egypt exiled by the corrupt leaders at the time. So it was appropriate for me to visit both countries,expecting to see the inspiration for this philosopher I visited a village in Tunisia in July 1970 not far from Tunis and I have never seen so much poverty and filth in my life I even had a word with the head of the municipality when I saw sewer poored straight into the sea and kids playing in it, one of whome nearly drawned in the pooring sewer. Leaving Tunisia I left for Egypt where I found it to be even poorer and more filthy, I once stopped to eat a home made Pizza in a shop and waited for my turn, and then I saw the chef, he was filthy and was peeling his nose in full view and people did not care, so I gave up. Only last year, I visited the same places again and to my shock, the village in Tunisia was just the same if not more filthy with no pavements, dust everywhere, bad roads, trash in the street and what made it worst is that the same head of municipality was still there only now he was an elderly man, so I asked myself, what was he doing to improve the place? from what I have seen, absolutely nothing probably because in neither countries existed accountability. When I visited the Village in Egypt the same was observed only now, the people are twice as poor and dirty and above me, expensive helicopters belonging to the Army were flying and I thought to myself, this is a country in need of change,where priorities needed to be revisited so I remembered Ibn-Khaldoun's work particularly with reference to the failing of civilizations and wondered, did Tunisians and Egyptians ever listen to Ibn-Khaldoun carefully? Europeeans did and still praise him as one of the most outstanding intellectuals who can explain how countries fall. I hope you Egyptians would do something to learn from your past intellectuals and do something to free and educate your people and clean up your country from both trash, bad leadership and the corrupt army and build yourself a decent transport system. Though I come from france, as soon as I set foot in Egypt or Tunisia, I feel good and feel at home, keep up the fight and help your country better itself like your ancestors did.
ReplyDeleteThe real issue here is not the degree to which the plant pollutes. It is whether the people of Damietta were ever consulted about whether they should live among petrochemical plants, in an area where livelihoods are based on agriculture, tourism, small manufacturing, services, and fishing. They were not asked. They were not consulted. With all that desert, the government decides to build a deep port and a new industrial zone next to Ras al-Bar, without any regard to what is already there.
ReplyDeleteThe reason that there are many fertilizer plants all over Egypt built in the last few years is that the locals are NEVER consulted. Do you know how much money is made? MOPCO is a state-owned firm with a minority stake by Agrium. It is not accountable to anyone.
And for those criticizing Egypt, I live in the US. We have the same problems of environmental justice. Just go to the petrochemical corridor along the Gulf of Mexico. Or all the new hydraulic fracking wells for natural gas in Pennsylvania.
In fact, in both places it is access to cheap natural gas that is fueling the growth in these plants. With no compensation to those whose livelihoods and landscapes are destroyed. We are a wealthy "democracy" -- and we can't even protect the locals from industrial siting decisions that affect them directly.