Demolition Waste, Damaged Water Infrastructure and Mined
Agricultural Land Legacies of the Lebanon Conflict
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 30km 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 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
