Work on increasing dam’s capacity to begin soon

The project tender was awarded two months ago, and the technical studies will start within days to prepare for the implementation of the actual expansion of the dam and its tributaries.

The work will take approximately 200 days to complete at an estimated cost of over Dh16 million.

The project is part of the initiatives of the President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Once the work is completed, the storage capacity of the dam’s two lakes would increase by one million cubic metres. The lakes now have the capacity to store three million cubic metres.

This will benefit the farms that dot the area, which have been experiencing a drought for quite a long time.

The Ministry of Public Works recently completed the capacity-increasing projects of Sharm and Al Bidya dams following the directives from Shaikh Khalifa.

These directives were issued after Cyclone Gonu wreaked havoc in the region, like it did in Oman, five years ago and the water level rose, flooding the houses of several citizens.

A report issued by the Ministry of Environment and Water stated that Al Owais Dam was built in 1991 and it serves more than 100 farms distributed in the area surrounding it. Besides, it serves the farms located in the valleys leading to the area.

The 18-metre-high and 230-metre-long dam is one of the major ones in the region with the storage capacity of its two lakes reaching as much as three million cubic metres. It can hold water up to 12.9-metre height.

Its location gives it a significant role in the storage of groundwater and raising the groundwater level in the farms which have more than 300 wells. Al Owais is the third dam which Shaikh Khalifa had ordered to expand after the two dams in Sharm. With the building of Al Owais Dam, the number of dams in Fujairah and the Eastern region has risen to 61 since the inception of the UAE Federation.

Those who benefit from these dams include more than 10,000 UAE citizens and their 500-odd families which own farms and industrial facilities in Dhidna, Zakt, Al Raheeb, Al Bidya, Sharm Massafi, Al Bathna, Al Siji, Al Hail and other far-flung areas in the emirate, according to the figures released by the Fujairah Statistics Centre.

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