UAE | Leisure
Raw sewage prevents sailing in Dubai waters
Dubai Offshore Sailing Club on Friday cancelled its sailing trips as sewage continues to flow into the harbour, members have said.
- By Mariam M. Al Serkal, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:32 September 26, 2008
- Image Credit: Prasad Nair/Gulf News
- A dark layer of sewage remains in the bay of Dubai Offshore Sailing Club, in Jumeirah. The club has cancelled all dinghy sailing due to the danger posed from the contaminated water.
Dubai: Dubai Offshore Sailing Club on Friday cancelled its sailing trips as sewage continues to flow into the harbour, members have said.
"This has been an ongoing problem for the past three months," they said, referring to raw sewage floating around the harbour.
A statement from the Club said: "We have suspended all dinghy sailing and children's activities and advised members not to swim and go into the water."
The club conducted its own water sampling tests two weeks ago.
"It showed that the public beach is as contaminated as ours," a member said.
The dinghys are in the process of being relocated to the corner next to the public beach, so that members will be able to at least wade in the water without coming near to the sewage.
'Nothing suspicious'
The ongoing problem worsened on Tuesday night when a closed-off storm drain was reopened and sewage that had collected over several days flooded the harbour.
Despite the contamination in the area, beachgoers continued to swim in nearby beaches and said that they did not know of the pollution.
A maintenance cleaner at the public beach next to Burj Al Arab said that a team of Dubai Municipality employees removed the sewage from all affected beaches on Wednesday.
Dozens of residents were found lounging on the beaches that apparently looked free from any contamination. Many beach-goers said that they did not notice a difference in colour or smell in the waters, and they had no idea that it had been contaminated.
"I did not notice anything suspicious," said Karl Zablan, one swimmer. "It was refreshing to smell the salty water and everywhere I swam was quite clean."
The Jumeirah Beach Hotel continued to keep its beach open to hotel guests.
The public beach next to Union Square also saw its fair share of beach-goers, and none seemed to notice that there was any problem with the waters. "The beach is far from the sewage line and I do not think that this beach will get affected from that," said bather Alvin Tabaniag.
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