Shweir Environment

Webmaster · Site Admin Joined: 21 Jan 2007 Posts: 57

Often, many of us, and especially people from regions like the Mediterranean, tend to write in generalities with a bit of drama and at times tend to stretch facts to get people's attention about an important issue. Even though they may have an excellent cause, the over dramatization sometimes backfire and casts doubt about the real and key issues. This seems to be the case here.

Sadly, there is much credibility to Overpeace's concern about the environmental impact on our town and its future. These concerns are shared by residents and even some council members. I know that our new Mayor, Naeem Sawaya, seems to be making great efforts to address these issues.

Nabil and I had a good discussion w Dr. Ghosn. AS best as I can summarize, He explained that some of the licensing of these factories were obtained from the Ministry of Industry which in some ways override the Municipality.

When some citizens expressed concerns and protested to the Ministry that these factories appear to be in violation of their licenses, officials at the Ministry sent some questionable messages that further muddied the water about the meaning or interpretation of some vague wording in documents that is being now used to allow factories to exceed capacity. Also at stake appears to be personal liability exposure to those who dare to challenge such officials and even personal exposure to council members.

As you can surmize, the brief summary above, if I understood it correctly, further clouds the issues... which makes me appreciate the reasons forOverPeace's annonymity. It would be very difficult for anyone to express themselves openly in the town on such important issues without being ostracized. I hope OverPeace and other concerened persons will continue to post factual information without the overdramatization.

There are some discussions about moving the stone and cement plants to a more isolated area to preserve the beauty of Ain el Hanoot of an upper scale residential area and the Gateway or Entrance to Shweir.

I invite Municipality to comment on this issue, correct my summary where appropriate and keep us updated on this important issue that affects the towns future.

Samar Kiame · Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 84 Location: Shweir

I had the chance to talk with the owner of the new plant, and we discussed what was written on our BB about his plant, and I asked him what they are building here;
he said: "we manufacture plastic – plastic bags and also we print on them"
And he showed me some of the licenses of the plant…

The owner who seemed to be a very nice person, openly asked me to visit his plant in Beirut and make sure that everything is secure and that he already welcomed people from Shweir whom he claimed that were satisfied that there is no harm to the community…

Reflecting back one year ago when this subject came up and when we discussed it in our BB, we received official statement from the municipality assuring everyone that this plant was only for printing and not to manufacture plastics here:

Author Topic: Official Statement for Ain El Hanout Region
municipality
Member
Member # 136

posted 03-10-2006 03:04 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Anwar,
1- I received your email-dated march 8, and had a full attention to all its contents, while thanking you for your efforts and concerns about Shweir and Ain EL Hanout especially.
(…)

6- Going back to the printing on plastic bags plant. There is nothing of polluting affairs as it was mentioned by those who are raising this question.

This is situated in a light industrial zone in another area of Ain El Hanout. During the year 2002 a plastic bag printing press applied for a license, I formed a committee of two board councils composed of Engineer Habib Moujaes (Mechanical Engineer from the USA) and Engineer Imad Jerdak ( Water Engineer) to investigate the current plastic bag printing factory in Beirut and to be sure that it does not contaminate or pollute the area , the report was that its only a printing press and it has no pollution at all. That is why the Council Board Of The Municipality accepted their application and now it is in the process of being executed, they are going to employ around 150 employees of which the owner agreed to employ half of them at least from shweir. Keep in mind that this light industrial zone contains some old farms as well as an Aluminium Framing plant and all this region does not approach at all the Official Secondary School situated in ain El Hanout.

7- The municipal council is meeting this evening at 6 p.m. o' clock to discuss the cement industrial plant and I have prepared a full documentation for this case composed of eight pages to be distributed to the Municipality Council Members (15) so that you will be a connoisseur in this affair we will immediately scan them and email them to you so that you will be able to give copies to any person who is curious to know the details and satisfy the curiosity of others by asking you to translate them into english.

8-I do appreciate receiving any new inquisitions or concerns of any of the Shweirieh around the world to be put as tangible questions polite showing that a person Is seeking knowledge and not trying to accuse the municipality only with the purpose of criticizing.

9- Wishing you the best for Shweir.com to keep up with a high standard of respect to each other.

President of Shweir – Ain Sindyani Municipality
Dr. Nabil Ghosn

There seemed to be some contradiction and we would appreciate some clarification about such constructions

			Black discharge is from byproducts of molasses plant in Khinshara. This attracts bugs and causes bad smell. What can be done to remedy problems caused by discharge from another town?

		Note, this old tree was standing Because of waste water saturation, it died and fell.