UN team begins countrywide study of potential environmental hot spots
BEIRUT/NAIROBI: An international team of experts will begin an assessment of the environmental damage in Lebanon caused by the recent conflict this week.
The team, led by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and working in close cooperation with the Lebanese authorities, will be visiting and sampling sites thought to present potential risks to human health, wildlife and the wider environment.
These include the Jiyyeh thermal power plant 28 km south of Beirut which discharged an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 tons of fuel oil into the Mediterranean after being hit in mid-July; Beirut International Airport, where fuel tanks were set alight as a result of repeated bombing; and the Maliban glass factory in the Bekaa Valley destroyed by an air raid on July 19.
Other sites expected to be assessed by the UNEP-led team and national experts include some of the estimated 22 countrywide petrol stations that were damaged or destroyed and locations where there is thought to be unexploded ordnance.
The team also plans to assess pollution risks at several damaged drinking water, sewage treatment and hospital facility sites.
Damaged power transformers, collapsed buildings and ruptured oil lines that may have leaked or discharged hazardous substances and materials – such as asbestos and chlorinated compounds – are also earmarked for assessment.
Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary-general and UNEP executive director, said: There is an urgent need to assess the environmental legacy of the recent conflict and put in place a comprehensive clean-up of polluted and health-hazardous sites.
Work is ongoing to deal with the oil spill on the Lebanese coast. We must now look at the wider impacts as they relate to issues such as underground and surface water supplies, coastal contamination and the health and fertility of the land , he said.
This post-conflict assessment is being undertaken in response to a request by the Lebanese Government to assist in the development of a framework for guiding international reconstruction efforts , said Steiner.
We expect to have a comprehensive report on sites and locations in need of decontamination and clean-up before the end of the year. Once the hard facts are known and the hot spots pin pointed, I would urge the international community to back the findings as part of the reconstruction effort for Lebanon and its people , he added.
UNEP and its international team of experts will be liaising and working closely with the Lebanese authorities, the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, other UN agencies and organizations, the World Bank, IUCN-the World Conservation Union, the American University of Beirut and non governmental organizations.
The potential list of sites to be visited and sampled is based on research by UNEP supplemented by remote-sensing data and recommendations made by Yacoub Sarraf, the Environment Minister of Lebanon.
