|
The pilot plant planned in Chorfech (Tunisia) is a partnership between the project “Sustainable Concepts Towards a Zero Outflow Municipality (Zer0-M), mainly the Tunisian partner Centre de Recherches et des Technologies des Eaux (ex INRST, LEE), and the Office National d'Assainissement (ONAS). Zer0-M is a project in the Euro-Mediterranean Regional Programme for Local Water Management (MEDA Water programme), funded by the European Commission and the national partners of the project. ONAS participates with 20% of the cost of the pilot system as indicated in the agreement signed between CERTE and ONAS in June 2006.
The pilot activity is mainly meant as a demonstration of sustainable water management solutions as suggested by Zer0-M (low-cost wastewater treatment), which shall prove that these solutions work under real conditions and ultimately allow the further spreading of the demonstrated techniques. The pilot activity will also help to gain experience with the techniques implemented under real conditions and improve them if necessary until they can be recommended for wide application in rural settlements in Tunisia.
Last but not least they shall help to ease the difficulties in water and wastewater management faced by the fast growing community of Chorfech, a rural settlement in semi-arid climate with constantly increasing water consumption and very limited financial resources for the supply and sanitation services.
Chorfech is a rural settlement of about 50 houses counting 345 inhabitants (see figure 1). It is located in the Northwest of Tunis about 24 Km (national road GP8) between Tunis and Bizerte.
Figure 1: Overview of Chorfech settlement, sewerage network and pilot plant site (Google Photo)
The main activity at Chorfech is agriculture. The village has a conventional sewerage network linked to a septic tank. The diagnosis of the network, carried out by ONAS in spring 2007, show some problems:
• problem of slope and quality of connection,
• rainwater entrance into the sewerage network,
• isolated houses not connected to the network,
• grey water collected separately and discharged directly out of the houses , …).
  
Figure 2: Manhole of network (1), evacuation of individual grey water (2) and drainage canal (3).
There are in total 49 connecting points to the sewerage network and the last collector discharges the raw wastewater into the septic tank before discharging into a drainage channel.
The pilot plant should provide the possibility for safe reuse of the wastewater treated, and the systems will be operated as demonstration and a good example for rural settlements in Tunisia with low-costs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
