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TomInTib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 01:59 PM
Original message
Beirut oil slick devastates the Mediterranean
Oh, well, looks like everything will be OK in a hundred years or so.

Beirut oil slick devastates the Mediterranean
By Anne Penketh
Published: 08 August 2006
The Israeli bombing of a Lebanese power plant has triggered the Mediterranean's worst ever environmental catastrophe, with up to 30,000 tons of heavy fuel oil spewing out into the sea and the sludge-covered bodies of dead fish littering the once pristine beaches.

The marine damage in the Mediterranean, according to a spokeswoman for a UN agency that hopes to help clean up the mess once the bombing of Lebanon stops, could last for "up to a century".

Fuel tanks at the power plant at Jieh, located on the coastline 19 miles south of Beirut, have been on fire since the facility was hit on 13 July by Israeli warplanes. Two days later it was hit again. The fuel that did not catch fire spilled into the sea, causing a huge slick which has spread 50 miles up the coast of Lebanon and six miles along the coastline of neighbouring Syria. Many Lebanese accuse Israel of deliberating trying to sabotage the economy and the country's fragile tourist industry. Yassin Jaber, a prominent Lebanese MP who is a former minister, yesterday said: "This is part of a sequence of the war of envy and hatred. Why hit the factories, destroying its economic backbone? There's no other explanation."

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1217562.ece
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Nimrod2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 02:40 PM
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1. This is the saddest thing I have read on Lebanon...
Edited on Tue Aug-08-06 02:41 PM by Nimrod2005
The dead people are dead and gone, but this will last for years to come, not good, Lebanon had beautiful beaches...and a big fishing industry.
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TomInTib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 05:46 PM
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3. About that Lebanese fishing industry...
I read where a village had hauled over 400 of their fishing boats onto dry land so the Israelis couldn't claim they were being used for smuggling.

Guess how many of those boats were destroyed by the Israelis?

Every damned one of them.

On dry land.
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muriel_volestrangler Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 06:13 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. Story here (and picture, though that may be a different port)
On Friday, the fishermen of Ouzai trickled toward the port as usual, only to find it no longer existed.

The fish auction house was gone. The boat repair shop was gone. So was the small cafeteria where a fisherman could get a sandwich or a cup of tea after a long day at sea.

Worst of all, so were their boats: a night-long barrage from the air and sea had left hundreds of boats in charred, smoking ruins.
...
Issam Kataya, head of the fishermen's syndicate in Beirut, estimated losses at $1 million to $3 million for the 240 boat owners who operated out of the port, each of whom supports his own family and perhaps those of several crew members.

Twenty boats survived.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-fish6aug06,1,1396126.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true
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Nimrod2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 08:13 PM
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5. Yes bombed the whole harbor/port area...nt
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jpkenny Donating Member (224 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 03:16 PM
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2. maybe Israel didn't like the competition? But whatever happens with this
it will affect Israel too. I believe that Israel has not only carried out war crimes but significant crimes against all humanity and this oil catastrophe is just one of several.
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Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 08:45 PM
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6. So how many other wars have ruined the Mediterranean?
Edited on Tue Aug-08-06 08:46 PM by Rex
Hey, what's 30,000 tons of carcinogenic slime into the Mediterranean mean among friends? Fuck it. Global Warming is just a frat prank, right? What's 30,000 tons of heavy oil? Hey it's war. :sarcasm:

http://www.accede.org/prestige/documentos/Tox_fuel_pesado.pdf

A hundred years sounds pretyy optimistic to me.

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lonestarnot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Aug-08-06 08:48 PM
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7. This is just the worst.
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