The purpose of establishing the company:
The purpose for which the company was established is to preserve the environmental and biological system of Qarun Lake, not to convert it into a dead lake.
The Fayoum Depression is located in the north-west of the Arab Republic of Egypt, where its depth reaches (24 m) below sea level, and Lake Qarun is considered the deepest part in this depression, where the lake level reaches about (44 m) below sea level and the surface of the lake is about (55 thousand acres) in length from east to west it is approximately (45 km), breadth (8 km), and its depth reaches about (12 m) in its deepest part.
Qarun Lake used to receive the water from the Nile flood in excess of the agricultural land needs of the Fayoum Governorate, and the Fayoum Governorate was connected to the Nile by Bahr Yussef at El Lahun. As a result of controlling the amounts of Nile water by constructing dams and barrages on the Nile River, this led to controlling the amounts of irrigation water coming to Fayoum Governorate, and Lake Qarun received most of the agricultural drainage water for agricultural lands in Fayoum Governorate.
Lake water is characterized by its unique chemical components, where the sulfate ion concentration increases to (4) times that of the sea water. Lake Qarun is a closed lake, which led to a steady increase in the salinity of the lake until it reached in 1984 AD to (34 grams), where the concentration of lake water was (10 grams / liter) in 1906, so the goal of the establishment of the company was to limit the increasing of salinity, which It was threatening the ecosystem inside Lake Qarun by extracting salts from Lake Qarun as follows:
- – Anhydrous sodium sulfate
- – Sodium chloride (refined) and high purity sodium chloride (vacuum salt)
- – Sodium chloride for medicinal uses (Pharmaceutical Salts)
- – Hydrated magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt).
Impact on the environment and fishery resources
About ( 18.69 million tons) of salts were extracted from the lake water, equivalent to about ( 500 million m3) from the lake water, which led to controlling the salinity of the lake at a level of ( 36.7 g / liter), which helped to preserve the environmental system inside the reserve. The project positively affected the amount of fish production of the lake.
