More Sharjah News! The 'Water Tank Cooling Device' Announcement!

It's amazing what you can find living in water tanks. 

Actually this is a lie as this is a fish in Sharjah Aquarium. 

Which is, incidentally, a great day out with the kids.

Oh, the excitement! It's all happening in Sharjah these days - following hot on the heels of this weekend's crackdown on pesky prayer-time parkers, Sharjah Municipality has announced that all property owners in the emirate will be required to install a 'water cooling device' in their water tanks.

If you're not a resident of the UAE, you might not appreciate we all have water tanks (many of us have two to be sure to be sure) on the roofs of our villas and on our apartment blocks. Water is pumped twice daily through the public network, filling these holding tanks from which we then derive our daily supply of water. Although some are plastic, many - especially older - tanks are fibre-glass. Over time, some interesting species of fresh water slugs and other things can be found in tanks which should, ideally, be occasionally flushed just to keep 'em clean.

But this is the first I've ever heard of a 'water cooling device'. Never mind, Gulf News is a real newspaper and will have asked the first question that came to my mind - 'what device?'

Oh.

So whatever the device is to be, we know not. Apparently there'll be a degree of choice, in that water tanks can either have a water cooling device or be shielded from the sun 'especially during the warmer summer months'. The move is to 'address the problem of high temperature of water faced by many residents in Sharjah.'

What problem? It's long been accepted fact that you know summer's arrived when either a) hot water comes out of your cold tap (and you can turn off the immersion to get cold water from your hot tap) or b) Gulf News publishes a photo of a pigeon drinking from a standpipe. When both happen, you know it's gonna be a hot one.

So we don't know what device, when it will be implemented, how it will be implemented, who will be affected, what the application process is or who is going to pay for all this. Whatever all this is.

So much for Rudyard Kipling's 'six honest serving men'.

Gulf News does point out residents can call 993 for more information. I tried just for fun and so you wouldn't have to. I am none the wiser, but have spoken to a number of puzzled-sounding people and been transferred to many, many phone lines that ring out and cut you off.

Meanwhile, we can all enjoy the cooler weather that is upon us and the consequential cool water coming from our water tanks...