Life's a beach – and on Dubai's shores, life stinks
State cracks down on lax waste-disposal regulations, illegal dumping as toxic sludge on city's coast spoils hot spot for Western expats
February 10, 2009 at 5:21 AM EST
DUBAI — Dubai's Offshore Sailing Club is an island for wealthy expats.
The pub serves Strongbow on tap, flashy boats named Wet Dream and Howzat bob in the harbour and big-name banks sponsor ritzy regattas on weekends.
But down by the docks, a noxious tide of toilet paper, raw sewage and chemical waste has turned the exclusive Jumeirah Beach - once a magnet for Westerners - into foul-smelling sludge.
The pollution is bad enough to trigger typhoid and hepatitis in swimmers.
But the battle over who is to blame is even more toxic, pitting Dubai's wealthy expats against Emirati authorities, who have come under fire for failing to stop truckers from dumping human and industrial waste into the ocean.
"It's a cesspool. Our tests show too many E. coli to count. It's like swimming in a toilet," said Keith Mutch, the sailing club's manager.
Their battle also illustrates how Dubai's rapid development threatens to outpace the Emirates' ability to enforce environmental standards, angering the very foreigners this boomtown seeks to attract.
Meanwhile the beach, home to a string of five-star hotels, has been closed.
The pollution skirts the man-made Palm Island, where celebrities including David Beckham and Simon Cowell own million-dollar villas.
Mr. Mutch first detected trouble on a walk on the beach last summer.
"The stench was unbearable, and the water was a muddy brown. There was toilet paper in the sand," he recalled.
He traced the sludge back to a storm drain, hidden behind a pile of rocks near the dock, spewing effluent directly into the sea.
Mr. Mutch followed the drain back several kilometres inland, to Dubai's Al Quoz industrial area, where every day, cement, paint and furniture factories do a brisk trade, supplying raw material for this city-state's furious building boom.
But at night, it plays host to a dirtier business.
Dozens of sewage trucks, collecting human waste from Dubai's 1.3 million inhabitants empty their tanks directly into storm drains, like the one that leads to the sailing club.
The drains are all connected, built to collect rainwater during Dubai's short wet season.
According to truckers - mostly poor, South Asian workers - illegally dumping waste is a financial decision.
In interviews, several explained they are paid by each truckload, to collect waste from the city's septic tanks.
Many choose to flush trucks directly into storm drains to increase their earnings, avoiding lengthy line-ups at Dubai's only sewage treatment plant, a long drive away in the desert. "We are paid so poorly, we have no other choice," said one trucker, who did not want his name published because he feared being fined.
Mr. Mutch spent several nights documenting the illegal dumping with his camera. He fired off letters to the municipality and to the departments of health, environment, and tourism with his photographic proof.
"At first I was ignored," Mr. Mutch said. But when the local press started carrying the story, the city cracked down, imposing fines of up to $25,000 (U.S.) and threatening to confiscate tankers and deport truckers if dumping persists.
Dubai also promised to build a new pit in the desert, near the existing sewage treatment plant, as a "medium-term solution" to the problem.
Municipal authorities say their campaign has been a success. They say their latest test results show water samples are within safe standards.
Mr. Mutch disagrees, citing independent tests commissioned by the sailing club that show water is still badly contaminated, with bacteria, human feces and chemicals. "Our tests show the water is still not safe. It's a bleak situation, and we don't know what else we can do," he said.
For now, members of the exclusive sailing club are staying clear of the water. The beach remains closed, and even at the clubhouse bar, the stench can be unbearable.
One long-time club member said: "It's absolutely shocking that Dubai is not fixing this problem. For all of its aspirations to become a world-class city, it still has Third World problems."
Special to The Globe and Mail
Dubai's poluted beaches
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