Delabie explained that the Hayat Project is a private initiative by a group of people who want to make a difference by focusing on reforestation. A core part of ‘Hayat’ is a waste water treatment plant (WWTP) which is located in Al Wathba Area. All the members of Hayat are currently employed in the construction of the plant.
The people behind the project are Philippe Paulissen, an Environmental and Water Engineer and Technical Director, Marc Richli who is a Civil and Water Engineer and Executive Managing Director and Delabie, who is the Project Coordinator and the Environmental and Water Engineer.
Hayat was initially setup to reduce the amount of wasted water and use whatever is in excess more efficiently. The plant project is large, and at full capacity will treat the wastewater of 300,000 m3/day, equivalent to the water consumption of 1.2 million inhabitants. After that, the treated water will then be sent back to the city of Abu Dhabi and surrounding farms to be re-used for soil conditioning and fertilizing.
“Since we have the land, the water, and the fertilizer available, we got the idea to build a forest as this will be a good way to educate the people and the children on the value of water conservation and protection of biodiversity.”
Delabie explained that the forest of indigenous trees would become adapted to desert conditions and, therefore, will have very low water demand. Waste water from sewage pipes will be recycled to make cleaner water and bio solid. The byproduct of the treatment would be used for agriculture. Visitors to the plant would witness the process of wastewater being recycled and prepared for reuse.
“The plant will be launched in August 2011 and so far we are in the hardest part of the project; the sponsor mobilization phase. We want sponsors to help with investing in biodiversity and education. Once we achieve that, we’ll have six months to prepare for plantation and irrigation and to see how many people get involved. Hopefully Hayat will be completed by October 2011.”
Apart from reforestation the group is keen on educating the public and their target group is schools, universities and water treatment companies. They intend on educating the public by creating a visitor center for people to tour at least once a week.
“Here we will explain different species of plants, how foster homes to animals like gerbils, foxes, birds, etc are created and we will give the public additional information, aside from what they can learn from the books they read. For children we will conduct lessons about water conservation, its scarcity and the biodiversity of the UAE. This project is not just about forestation, it’s an effort to make people aware about the value of water. Some day we would like to integrate the tour of the forest with the visit of the Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP).”
If you would like to sponsor the Hayat project, email hayat@istp2.ae
