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-- 7 million miles of pre-stressed steel wire to strengthen 12-foot diameter pipes;
-- 3,500 km of pipeline covering an area equal to Western Europe;
-- four pipelines - two east and two west, connecting with links north; and
-- thousands of miles of roads between and connecting its various lines and infrastructure, supplying 6.5 million cubic meters of fresh water daily to Libyans and others in the region. Extracting water at a depth of from 1,600 - 2,500 feet, the system purifies and supplies it mainly to populated coastal cities.
Conceived in the late 1960s, feasibility studies were conducted in 1974. Construction then began in 1984, divided in five phases, each largely separate, then combined into an integrated system. Funded by Gaddafi without loans from other nations or Western banks, the project cost $25 billion so far.
Inaugurated in August 1991, phase I provides two million daily cubic meters of water along a 1,200 km pipeline from As-Sarir and Tazerbo to Benghazi and Sirt, via the Ajdabiya reservoir. Phase II delivers one million daily cubic meters from the Fezzan region to the fertile Jeffara plain in the Western coastal belt, also supplying Tripoli.
Phase III is in two parts. Its first adds an additional 1.68 million cubic meters daily through another 700 km of pipeline and pumping stations. It also supplies 138,000 more cubic meters daily to Tobruk and the coast from a new Al-Jaghboub wellfield through another 500 km of pipeline.
The final phases involve extending the distribution network by pipelines linking the Ajjabiya reservoir to Tobruk, then connecting Eastern and Western systems at Sirt into a single integrated network. When fully operational, Gaddafi hopes to make the desert as green as Libya's flag.
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