I'm posting some excerpts from my translation of this article from today's El País (Madrid). I don't have much to add except that it seems like time for the world's environmental ministers to be running things instead of the defense ministers.
In other news, 9% of Spain's population now consists of immigrants from Eastern European, African and Latin American countries, and 500,000 cars left Barcelona this weekend for summer vacation, resulting in a 24-kilometer traffic jam. And it's hot. On the bright side, there's an awful lot of solar energy here if we would just use it.
El País online requires a paid subscription but La Vanguardia Digital (www.lavanguardia.es) does not for those who read Spanish and are curious about events over here.
The Attacks on Lebanon Threaten to Cause an Environmental Catastrophe
El País (Madrid)
Á. Espinosa, Beirut
"The Israeli bombing of Lebanon's fuel tanks and power plants is threatening to unleash one of Mediterranean's worst environmental catastrophes. The destruction Thursday of the gas oil tanks at the Yiyeh substation, south of Beirut, have caused a spill of 15,000 tons of fuel into the sea. This, along with the burning of forests and the accumulation of garbage, have put environmental authorities on alert."
The articles goes on to describe how the spill now affects a third of Lebanon's coast and has reached Syria.
"'They bombed it twice, the 13th and the 15th,' a resident indicated... Since then the fire has destroyed four of the six tanks at the plant. A fifth started to burn Thursday and area residents fear that the fire will spread to the sixth. At least 15,000 tons of heavy fuel were spilled into the sea, but this figure could reach 25,000 if the burning tank explodes. The tanks are located barely twenty meters from the water."
"'It is the worst environmental catastrophe in Lebanese history,' an environmental defense association called Línea Verde (Green Line) reported... The damage is visible in Beirut itself, where the Ramlet el Baida beach, whose name literally means White Sand, has been stained black for almost a week."
"'I have asked for help from the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and the United States, countries which have suffered black tides before because we cannot act alone," the Lebanese Environmental minister, Yacub Sarraf, stated yesterday to France Presse."
He goes on to say that the ministry estimates that cleanup will cost 200 million dollars and that it can't get underway until the bombing stops.
"The sea is not the only environmental victim of the current conflict. The bombings have caused fires in the forested zones in the southern and eastern portions of the country..." Environmental authorities do not have the means to stop them.
