Oil spill adds ecological crisis to Lebanon's agony

[MrPrax]

Oil spill adds ecological crisis to Lebanon's agony

BEIRUT, July 27 (Reuters) - Along Lebanon's sandy beaches and rocky headlands runs a belt of black sludge, 10,000 to 30,000 tonnes of oil that spilled into the Mediterranean Sea after Israel bombed a power plant.

Lebanon's Environment Ministry says the oil flooded into the sea when Israeli jets hit storage tanks at the Jiyyeh plant south of Beirut on July 13 and 15, creating an ecological crisis that Lebanon's government has neither the money nor the expertise to deal with.

"We have never seen a spill like this in the history of Lebanon. It is a major catastrophe," Environment Minister Yacoub al-Sarraf told Reuters.

....

The spill is especially threatening since fish spawn and sea turtles nest on Lebanon's coast, including the green turtle which is endangered in the Mediterranean, local ecologists say.

Carried by a north-easterly wind, the spill has travelled 70-80 km up the coast of Lebanon, which has been bombarded by Israel for 16 days in a war against Hizbollah.
....

"July is hatching season for turtle eggs and baby turtles have to reach deep water as fast as possible to avoid predators. With the oil in their way, they will not survive," Wael Hmaidan, a local environmental activist said.

"The oil spill, part of which has settled on the sea floor, threatens blue fin tuna, which is an important but overfished commercial fish, as well as shark species."

Reuters

[NNadir]

1. Isn't that nice?

The environmental impact of war, which is enormous, always gets swept under the rug.

[skids]

2. Isreal's forests on fire, too...

...both sides seem to have forgotten to figure in that war tends to hurt the land in ways that that will ache for generations to come.

Story about it just posted to LBN:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2419613

[NNadir]

3. War is so wrong...

It is unbearable that in a time of the most important ecological crisis humanity has faced since the last ice ages that people are doing this kind of shit.

On some level, these wars, Iraq included, are not even issues that should register on the scale of importance. Can no one see what is really happening?

Where is there a Mahatma Gandhi? His message of simplicity, of peace, of anti-materialism is so desperately needed.