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UNEP News Release 2007/02
Marine Environment Fares
Better is Good News for Tourism and Fisheries
Berlin, 23 January 2007—
Serious and in some cases widespread environmental challenges are
confronting the Lebanese authorities as a result of the recent conflict, a
report launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
says.
Many of the bombed and burnt
out factories and industrial complexes including the Jiyeh power plant
south of Beirut are contaminated with a variety of toxic and health
hazardous substances.
Urgent action is needed to
remove and safely dispose of such substances, which include ash and leaked
chemicals amid concerns they represent a threat to water supplies and
public health.
Dealing with and disposing of
significant quantities of war-related debris, including health care and
hospital waste represents a further and major environmental challenge.
The sheer scale of the debris
is overwhelming existing municipal dump sites and waste management
regimes, the team found.
The report also stresses the
importance of rapidly removing unexploded cluster bombs, especially in the
south of the country where large areas of economically important
agricultural land have become ”out of bounds” for farmers.
Wide-spread damage to
Lebanon’s water supply and sewage networks also occurred as a result of
the recent hostilities. Prior to the 34-day conflict, which took place
between July and August 2006, the networks had been undergoing
comprehensive upgrading and modernisation.
“These networks were
extensively damaged in the conflict and hence present a risk of
groundwater contamination and a potential public health hazard. Waste
water management constitutes a major chronic environmental stress factor,”
says the report, prepared by UNEP’s Post Conflict Branch.
On a more positive note, the
report indicates that oil pollution to the marine environment has been
largely contained and contamination levels appear to be generally typical
of coastal areas of that part of the Mediterranean. This should be good
news for the country’s economically important tourism and fisheries
sectors.
A further positive finding,
particularly in the light of various high profile media reports, come from
studies in Beirut and southern Lebanon of sites struck by munitions.
Detailed field tests and analysis of samples at laboratories in Europe
have found no evidence that the missiles used contained depleted uranium
or another kind of radioactive material.
Achim Steiner, UN
Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: “This post
conflict assessment was carried out at the request of the Lebanese
authorities following the cessation of hostilities in mid August last year”.
“The report provides a
comprehensive picture of the outstanding environmental problems facing the
Lebanon and its people. Some of these, like war-related debris, cluster
bombs on farmland, toxic waste — the result of bomb damage and fires at
industrial facilities — and the wide-spread damage to water and sewage
systems require urgent remedial action. Others are more long-term in
nature including the necessity for systematic monitoring of the health of
local populations, and the environment, in certain key locations,” he said.
“There is also good news with
the marine environment appearing to have largely escaped serious long term
damage linked with the oil spill from the Jiyeh power plant. I can only
praise the international emergency response effort -- involving the
Lebanese authorities, governments in the Mediterranean and elsewhere, the
European Commission, IUCN, local NGOs and the UN --, for moving as quickly
as the difficult circumstances permitted to tackle the spill at the time,”
said Mr Steiner.
“I sincerely hope that this
study and report, generously supported by the governments of Germany,
Norway and Switzerland, will have a positive and lasting impact on the
lives of the Lebanese people by galvanizing the international community,
including those attending a Lebanon reconstruction meeting in Paris in two
days time, to factor the environment into their plans for Lebanon,” said
Mr Steiner.
Highlights from the Post
Conflict Assessment of the Lebanon
The conflict in Lebanon and
in Israel began on 12 July 2006 and ended on 14 August with the conclusion
of a ceasefire under UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Close to 1,200
people were reportedly killed and over 4,400 injured. More than 900,000
people in Lebanon fled their homes.
There was widespread
destruction of roads and more than 100 bridges and overpasses. Beirut
airport and seaports were bombed and an estimated 30,000 housing units
destroyed or badly damaged.
The results of today’s report
are based on a field assessment by 12 environmental experts carried out
between late September and mid-October following a request from the
Lebanese Minister of the Environment.
The team were accompanied by
15 Lebanese environment ministry staff and volunteers and a scientist from
the Lebanese Atomic Energy Agency. They visited over a hundred carefully
selected sites.
Samples of soil, surface and
ground water, dust, ash, seawater, sediment and molluscs like oysters were
collected.
These were sent twice a week
to specialist laboratories in Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Duplicate samples were made available to the Lebanese authorities.
Short, medium and long-term
measures have been drawn up for each of the sites covering issues such as
waste removal, decontamination and environmental monitoring.
The Jiyeh Thermal Power Plant
and other Industrial Facilities
The power plant, located 30 km
south of Beirut, was never far from the headlines after fuel tanks were
bombed in mid-July releasing as much as 15,000 tons of fuel oil into the
local and marine environment. The oil spill affected 150km of the Lebanese
coastline as well as parts of Syria’s coast.
The team tested soils over a
five square kilometre area around the plant and detected elevated levels
of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)—petroleum products linked with a
wide range of health risks.
They are recommending that
people living close to the plant be subject to long-term monitoring in
order to pick up any unusual health trends such as cancers and heart
problems.
The team also visited
numerous other industrial facilities, many of which took direct strikes
and were either destroyed, badly damaged or set on fire.
These included the Al Arz
Lilnasiej textile factory in the Zahleh area and the Maliban glass factory
and Lamartine food factory—both in the Beqaa Valley.
The main ‘hot spot’ of
concern is the Choueifat industrial area where a cluster of sites were
bombed, namely Transmed warehouse, Lebanon Company for Carton Mince and
Industry, El-Twait feedlot, and Beirut’s International Airport and the
Ghabris detergent factory in Tyre.
The environmental legacy of
conflict at many of these sites is broadly similar with environmental and
health issues linked to toxic or hazardous ashes, oils, heavy metals,
industrial chemicals, rubble, solid waste and sewage.
These may pose health risks
to clean-up workers, local communities and at several sites have the
potential to leak into water supplies unless sites are thoroughly
decontaminated and the pollution contained.
Weapons including Unexploded
Cluster Bombs
Large swathes of key
agricultural land south of the Litani River have been affected by cluster
bombs. Other areas affected include Nabatiyeh and the southern part of the
Jezzine district.
Agriculture, based on crops
like olive, grapes, citrus fruits and tobacco, make up 70 per cent of
southern Lebanon’s economy. An estimated 90 per cent of the local
population depend on agriculture.
The report says significant
amounts of these agricultural lands have become inaccessible for farmers
due to unexploded ordnance. “Valuable pasture lands have also been
rendered out of bounds which will likely lead to overgrazing in accessible
areas and habitat degradation,” says the report.
The situation is also
triggering other unsustainable practises. For example farmers have been
setting alight shrubs and bushes in the hope of igniting sub-munitions or
“bomblets” the size of a soda or fizzy drinks can.
Experts with the UN mine
clearance operation estimate that the de-mining could take up to 15 months.
Agricultural land should be the priority, particularly in prime areas like
olive groves and fruit orchards.
“It is also important to
provide alternative livelihood support for the population of southern
Lebanon so that they are able to cope in this critical interim period
without undermining the natural resource base,” says the report.
While the experts confirmed
the use of white phosphorus by Israeli forces, the team could not detect
any contamination that would indicate the use of depleted uranium (DU)
weapons or indeed ones containing “any other uranium isotope composition”.
High radioactivity reading
were however detected at Yatar and linked with melted instruments from a
crashed helicopter and also at the Maliban glass factory in Zahleh.
Readings here were linked to high temperature bricks containing thorium.
The report recommends that
further investigations be undertaken at both sites to pin point and ensure
the complete removal of materials showing high radioactivity.
Meanwhile, the conflict led
to the outbreak of fires and the loss of economically valuable tree
species in southern Lebanon impairing the government’s fledgling
reforestation programme.
Marine Environment
The team tested sediments and
oysters — natural pollution indicators -- at close to 30 sites along the
Lebanese coast in order to assess the impact of the oil spill from the
crippled tanks of the Jiyeh power plant.
Despite the size of the spill
and visible contamination of the shoreline, the results indicate that the
marine environment was largely saved from significant long-term effects.
Elevated levels were detected
in the Tyre Marine park, 2.5 km south of Tyre and at Damour, around 15km
south of Beirut on the coast. However the overall conclusions are that PAH
levels in sediment and molluscs is in line with similar coastal areas
influenced by urban areas, industry and shipping.
The emergency clean-up
response by the Lebanese authorities, the international community,
non-governmental organizations and local communities is praised for the
speed with which it was organised and the comprehensiveness of the
response.
The fuel oil was also heavy
which meant that a large proportion sank rapidly to the sea bed close to
the power plant. Chemical analysis of the fuel oil involved indicates that
it contains relatively low levels of toxic hydrocarbons.
The report does caution that
the remaining fuel oil on the seabed near the power plant should be
removed in case it re-mobilizes but stresses that the main environmental
concern is the safe disposal of the collected oil waste.
Notes to Editors
The Post Conflict Assessment
report on the Lebanon is available for download at
http://www.unep.org
The UNEP Post Conflict Branch
has carried out assessments in several locations firstly in the Balkans
and also in Afghanistan, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Iraq, Sudan,
and Liberia. http://postconflict.unep.ch/
For More Information Please
Contact Nick Nuttall, UNEP Spokesperson, on Tel: +254 20 7623084, Mobile
while in Germany/Europe +41 79 596 57 37, E-mail:
nick.nuttall@unep.org
UNEP News Release 2007/02
For the complete report (pdf), URL:
http://www.unep.org/pdf/Lebanon_PCOB_Report.pdf
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