CONCLUSION The present study reveals that the sewage waste water can be used as an alternative to fresh water irrigation and as a source of fertilizers, since it has high contents of both organic matter and nutrients (N, P and K) and even after 35 years of its continuous use, heavy metals were found within the permissible limits in sewage irrigated soils. Nevertheless, the agricultural use of these effluents should be well controlled, because of the persistence of metals in the soil in an extractable and plant available form for many years. For this reason, it is necessary to control the quality of both soils and waste water in order to adjust the dose applied. The present trend of indiscriminate use of untreated sewage water must be controlled. It should be treated before its use on land or it should be used after proper dilution.