Lebanonwire, February 21, 2003

The Daily Star

Hala Kilani
Daily Star staff

Agriculture, fisheries, industry and tourism along the Orontes River are polluting the waters and in some parts killing marine life, according to a Syrian-Lebanese study whose results were announced Thursday.
“We barely found fish aside from the ones raised in fisheries, and after Homs, the river dies. We couldn’t even find frogs there; animal aquatic life completely vanished after the Syrian city,” Syrian researcher Mohammed Owaidat said as he displayed his slides at the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research (LNCSR).
The Syrian and Lebanese researchers studied the Orontes by collecting samples from different areas along the river, starting from the Labweh source in Lebanon up to Lake Qattineh in Syria during 2000 and 2001.
The survey was one of the few that did not subcontract non-Arab researchers, a move that limited its cost to both the Syrian and Lebanese governments to about $15,000, an insignificant number compared to the $420,000 paid by the Lebanese authorities to a Swedish company charged with surveying the Litani River. Four of the researchers came from the Syrian Atomic Energy Commission and three from the Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission (affiliated with the LNCSR), both government institutions.
The survey was organized because the Orontes is a drinking and irrigation water source for many Lebanese and Syrian villages. And the Orontes is becoming increasingly important as the region suffers from desertification, making the average amount of water available for every Syrian close to 1,000 cubic meters per year and for every Lebanese 1,800 cubic meters.
“In 2025, and believe me that’s not too long from now, the availability will be reduced to 644 cubic meters for every Syrian per year and to 1,000 cubic meters for every Lebanese per year,” Owaidat said.
Also, a sustainable development indicator for 2002 reported that the quantity and the quality of water in Lebanon and Syria deteriorated drastically. The indicator, which evaluated water quality and quantity in 142 countries, showed that the two countries were well behind most others. Lebanon ranked 106th in terms of water quality and quantity and Syria 107th.
The study found that the main sources of pollution came from the production of sugar, yogurt, fertilizers, iron, tires, oil and power along the Syrian part of the Orontes in the cities of Homs and Hama. In addition to receiving the untreated waste water of these industries, the Orontes also gets the domestic sewage that pours into the river at an estimated 100 cubic meters per day and greatly decreases the oxygen available for fish to survive in the river.
Agricultural land surrounding the Orontes is another source of pollution as a great quantity of chemical fertilizers and insecticides run off into the river.
Lebanon’s main contribution to the pollution of the Orontes comes from the 27 cafes along the river and the fisheries, whose waste is directly dumped in the main stream.
The survey also identified the presence of new forms of plant life in the river, which the researchers suggested was the result of pollution by some metals like lead.
“When we were visiting the river, we often came across a butter-like substance floating on the surface, probably the result of many people doing their washing in the Orontes with all kinds of detergents,” Owaidat said.
He added that he saw new lentil-like plants covering the surface of the river in some places, a clear sign of pollution to the Syrian scientist.
The researchers said several natural and climatic phenomena were also contributing to pollution and lower water levels.
“Because the Orontes is surrounded by mountains, it suffers from the consequences of soil erosion,” Owaidat said. “The river also suffers because in our region the quantity of water resulting from rainfall is very irregular and the speed of the wind, which sometimes goes beyond 100 kilometers per hour, leads to more evaporation.”
Lebanese researcher Kamal Slim said that some protein rich algae, important nutrients for fish, and many flowers that used to flow on the surface of the river have disappeared.
“But despite all this, the Orontes is considered to be one of the cleanest rivers in Lebanon and that is mainly due to the speed of its flow,” Slim said.
The head of the LNCSR, Mouin Hamzeh, said that the results of the study should be given to the communities living around and profiting from the Orontes to raise their awareness of the pollution threat.

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