History
In 1953, efforts to find oil in southern Libya led to the discovery of large quantities of fresh water underground. The Great Man-made River Project (GMRP) was conceived in the late 1960s and work on the project began in 1984. The project's construction was divided into five phases. The first phase required 85 million m³ of excavation and was inaugurated on 28 August 1991. The second phase (dubbed First water to Tripoli) was inaugurated on 1 September 1996.
The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River Project Authority and was funded by the Gaddafi government. Brown & Root and Price Brothers were responsible for the original design, and the primary contractor for the first phases was Dong Ah Consortium and the present main contractor is Al Nahr Company Ltd. This company was registered in England and Wales as a foreign company FC017848 until 31 July 2003.
The imported goods from several countries worldwide (such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Japan, etc.) destined to the construction of the GMR arrived by sea via the entry port of Brega (Gulf of Sidra).
The total cost of the project is projected at more than US$25 billion. Libya claims to have completed the work to date without the financial support of major countries or loans from world banks. Since 1990 UNESCO has provided training to engineers and technicians involved with the project.
The fossil aquifer from which this water is being supplied is the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System. It accumulated during the last ice age and is not currently being replenished. If 2007 rates of retrieval are not increased, the water could last a thousand years. Independent estimates indicate that the aquifer could be depleted of water in as soon as 60 to 100 years. Analysts say that the $25 billion groundwater extraction system is ten times cheaper than desalination.
On 22 July, during the 2011 Libyan civil war, one of the two plants making pipes for the project, the Brega Plant, was hit by a NATO air strike. At a press conference on 26 July, NATO explained that rockets had been fired from within the plant area, and that military material, including multiple rocket launchers, was stored there according to intelligence findings, presenting a photo showing at BM-21 MRL as an example.
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