Qena is the recipient of international environmental awards, yet the situation in Qous, one of the governorate's better known towns, suggests a frightening disregard for the environment. Mustafa El-Menshawy investigates Arrival in Qous, 700km south of Cairo, is heralded by an offensive sooty odour with overtones of rot. "A day-to-day aspect of life," Ahmed Omar, a microbus driver, told me, "because of the two factories operating here." He was referring to the Qena Paper Industry, established in 1997 adjacent to Qous's 50-year-old sugar plant to manufacture paper out of bagasse, the fibrous residue remaining after the extraction of juice from sugar cane stalks. An LE1.8 billion project, it promised to allay poverty and unemployment among Qous's 57,000 inhabitants. But as air and water pollution took their toll, residents began to complain of the factory's waste disposal methods. For their part factory officials were quick to deny charges of environmental damage, insisting they operate an environment- friendly business. "We have an industrial waste treatment plant," Ziad Mukhtar, production manager, told Al-Ahram Weekly, "created at a cost of LE75 million to allow safe disposal of water in the Nile after its use in the manufacturing process." After treatment, he insisted, the water to be siphoned off into the river is 100 per cent clean; nor, he added, do the gas emissions cause the atmosphere significant harm. Even though he concedes that paper is manufactured using 80 per cent bagasse and 20 per cent sodium hydroxide and lime -- the latter two chemicals being well-known pollutants -- Mukhtar insists the plant is as environment- friendly as it could possibly be. Environmental experts and independent observers will tend to agree with the residents, however. "Even after treatment," Gamal Mohamed Kamal, an environmental adviser, explained, "you can by no means guarantee that water which has been mixed with so many chemicals is clean." The dearth of local statistics notwithstanding, a 2004 UK Department for International Development report indicates that the Qena governorate incurs an LE260 million loss each year in solving pollution-induced problems, listing the Qous factories as sources of ground, air and water pollution throughout the governorate. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a medical source corroborated this information, reporting an alarming rise in the instance of respiratory diseases in Qous since production started at the paper plant; even prior to that, respiratory disease was widespread due to emissions from the sugar plant. Prior to 1997, indeed, 700 tonnes of bagasse were annually disposed of by burning, resulting in air pollution. Even now, a factory official admitted on condition of anonymity, the chimneys have not been fitted with filters despite the 2,500 employees' repeated appeals for protection against emissions. Ironically, Qena is the first Arab municipality to have received the ISO 14001 in 2003 -- in recognition of the environmental standards it abides by. A year later, the governorate also won the Rashed Al-Maktoum Award for, among other achievements, its waste management plan. "Sadly the environmental crisis in Qena is very effectively concealed," said Abdel-Gabar Al-Arabi, professor of radiation at Southern Valley (formerly Qena) University. "The government plants trees to decorate the streets -- and people are convinced that everything is environmentally sound." According to Al-Arabi's own research, presented at an academic conference last month, air pollution in Qena will have drastic consequences if it is not dealt with promptly. To help reduce the health hazards of industrial pollution throughout the country, in 1996 the Ministry of Environment launched the Egypt Pollution Abatement Project, made possible by a $20 million World Bank loan and aimed at strengthening the government's institutional capacity for monitoring and enforcing environmental regulations as well as enhancing collaboration among government institutions, industries and the financial sector. In 1997, moreover, USAID initiated a new programme addressing constraints to improve environmental management in Egypt. Yet neither plan seems to have had much effect on Qous, where residents, though concerned, are not about to take action. Though bothered by sickening smell, which sets in daily at sunset, farmer Ibrahim Imam, for example, seems more concerned with making ends meet than filing an official complaint he believes, probably rightly, will be ignored. Even fighting for this most basic of rights, Qous inhabitants like Imam have come to see as a luxury they can ill afford.
