Advancing wastewater treatment in rural areas

The LIFE-TCY project 'Sakhnin Centre' (LIFE03 TCY/IL/000035) has used LIFE funding to improve wastewater treatment and environmental awareness among rural Arab communities in northern Israel. The beneficiary of the project was the Towns Association for Environmental Quality-Beit Natufa (TAEQ), an organisation based in lower Galilee that serves the local population of six Arab villages. Its goal is to increase public awareness and community involvement regarding environmental issues.

TAEQ is responsible for the Sakhnin Regional Demonstration Centre (SRDC), located in the village of Sakhnin, which provides environmental planning, education and wastewater treatment (WWT) services. Rural area WWT plants usually use low investment technology, and suffer from problems of low process efficiency and poor effluent quality. Such plants can result in environmental damage – such as the pollution of existing surface and groundwater sources -  and in the loss of significant quantities of potentially reusable water. This was the case with the Sakhnin plant, which, although it was treating effluent from some 70% of local households, was in dire need of an upgrade.  

The LIFE project tested the possibility of treating the wastewater in such a way as to allow reuse for local irrigation. One additional benefit would be a dramatic reduction in freshwater consumption. Together with project partner Istanbul Technical University (ITU), TAEQ developed cheap and simple treatment methods such as wood shavings, cloth and plants.

Four methods were tested and all four managed to produce, on a small-scale, the expected quality improvements, with the most succesful being the application of an intermittently-fed bio-filter and a seasonal reservoir with a fixed medium.

The project also set out to allow the added water quality benefits to be studied and communicated both to local communities, and further afield.

One way was via a series of mini-research projects carried out by secondary school pupils throughout Israel. A total of 27 ‘final works’ were done by students majoring in environmental sciences, and 310 ‘Ecotops’ (projects on environmental topics) by other pupils. One lecturer working at the SDRC said it was amazing to watch students arrive with little environmental knowledge and then to see their perceptions change.

Three annual workshops were held, involving the participation of students, experts, academics, entrepreneurs and policy-makers. The project was also visited by many politicians, diplomats, academics and others from both Israel and abroad.

Sakhnin Centre as a Model for Environmental Education and International Cooperation on Advanced Wastewater Treatment (A-WWT) in Rural Areas.