The health effects of benzene -- an ingredient found in gasoline and jet fuel -- are well known and severe. Short-term exposure can cause significant damage to the nervous system and dramatic suppression of the immune system. Consistent consumption of benzene-tainted water can cause long-term effects including cancer (particularly Leukemia), birth defects and damage to the reproductive system.
Heavy metals in drinking water are also known to damage the liver, brain and other vital organs.
Adding to the hazards, very few sewage treatment plants in Baghdad are operational. Raw waste from the city of five million residents can be pumped through the sewer system, completely bypassing any treatment, and flow right into the river.
Statistics underscore the widespread suffering of Iraqis. The incidence of diarrheal diseases, such as typhoid, dysentery and cholera, doubled between August 2002, before the US-led invasion, and a year later. So reported the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), a UN agency tasked with coordinating responses to severe humanitarian crises. Seventy percent of all children’s sicknesses are linked to contaminated water, the report adds.
Over one year into the occupation, the situation is not seen by most residents here as having improved much. Therefore, some have begun to take on the responsibility and work of enacting changes they do not believe can wait for foreign authorities or the new interim government to undertake.
Shwaqi Kareem, the president of the National Association for Defense of Environment and Children (NADEC), founded the non-governmental organization (NGO) because he felt it was time to start cleaning up a particularly polluted section of the Tigris. He hopes to remove the garbage, stop the deluge of raw sewage that is flowing into the river and establish gardens along the banks.
PHOTO: Waste and garbage from this Baghdad area refinery make their way directly into the Tigris. (Dahr Jamail/NewStandard)
Kareem said the Tigris is in worse condition now than before the invasion, and blames the US’s disinterest in taking care of a waterway considered vital by Iraqis.
NADEC draws on the labor of around 1,000 workers, said co-founder Salim Kamel. Some are paid, but the majority are volunteers. "We get some money from the municipality," Kamel said, "but some of the volunteers are business owners who donate money as well."
Kareem is reluctant to work with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in the cleanup; he blames the Coalition for allowing companies to dump their garbage and sewage into the river over the past year.
A contractor interviewed inside the Coalition-run "Green Zone" area echoed Kareem’s sentiments. Awshalim Khammo recently quit his job in frustration after working to clean up the areas of the CPA near the Tigris. "I tried all last year to help improve the Palace ground and the river side within the Green Zone, but things went from bad to worse," he said. Khammo complained in particular about dumping -- which he referred to as a "disaster" -- near the Kellogg Brown and Root warehouse and yards on the east end of the presidential palace.
Bechtel Corporation was awarded a no-bid, cost-plus-fixed-fee contract on April 17, 2003 worth $680 million. The controversial contract made Bechtel and its subcontractors responsible for the rehabilitation of the Sharkh Dijlah water treatment plant in Baghdad, as well as the Kerkh Waste Water Treatment Plant.
Repeated contacts with various authorities in charge of civilian press access to water treatment projects yielded no invitations to verify progress made on any Baghdad area water treatment facilities.
The brochure produced by Bechtel to highlight its work in Iraq concerning the drinking water situation only gives a concrete finishing date for two projects, one of which is the rehabilitation and capacity-building of the Sharkh Dijlah plant.
Work on the plant, Bechtel’s number two priority in Baghdad since June 2003, is expected to increase potable water by 225 million liters per day. The work was due to be completed by this month.
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