Features
Greenpeace bemoans ‘desert’ of waste off Selaata
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/features/06_10_00_a.htm
Maha Al-Azar
Daily Star staff

The sea-bed off the northern port city of Selaata is a “desert of phosphogypsum” caused by pollution released by the city’s fertilizer plant, Greenpeace told a news conference on Thursday.

Illustrating her argument with a mostly underwater documentary, Greenpeace Lebanon campaigner Zeina Hajj warned that the Lebanese Chemical Company has destroyed offshore marine life by dumping its effluent into the sea.  The fertilizer plant processes phosphate rock to extract a chemical it needs for its product. Phosphogypsum ­ a mix of calcium sulphate, trace metals, and radioactive elements ­ is a by-product of the process, and a sticking point in the caustic tirades between Greenpeace and the chemical plant.

Greenpeace charges that dumping the phosphogypsum without prior treatment is causing increased acidity in the waters offshore, causing the desert-like conditions.

“There are no plants, no animals, no life,” said Hajj, pointing to pictures showing plateaus of white slime blotched with black grainy particles.

But the chemical plant’s general manager, Elie Skaff, categorically denied what he called Greenpeace’s “half-truths.”  “I want you to see the great numbers of fishermen who come out at night,” he said. While he admitted that the plant dumps highly acidic by-products into the sea, he claimed that the sea’s diluting capacity immediately normalizes the water’s acidity levels.

“If you stick your nose into an exhaust pipe, you’ll die,” he said. “But why is it that we’re not harmed by the presence of all those cars out there? It’s because the exhaust fumes are diluted in the air.”

According to Skaff, “the Environment Ministry regularly monitors our factory ... and studies have shown that the plant is one of the best, following even stricter standards than those in Europe.”

Mohammed Sareji, president of the Professional Divers’ Association, recounted what he saw during his four dives in Selaata this year.

“I’ve dived in many polluted areas in Lebanon, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said. “It’s a dead sea-bed.”  Sareji said he covered a radius of about 1.5 kilometers during his dives  and only found a “desert of phosphogypsum.”  “Even the rocks, after which Selaata is named, are corroded,” he said. “You try to hold onto them and they completely disintegrate.”

Sareji also noted that the country’s coastline was known for its caves, which serve as breeding grounds for fish and turtles. “But in Selaata, these caves are now filled up with the powdery phosphogypsum which forms plateaus more than 2 meters high,” he said.

He lamented the death of the sea sponge in the area, pointing out that it used to be a major source of income.  “In the past, people had to obtain permits from the Ministry of Agriculture to extract it, selling it at $400-500 per kilogram,” he said. Sareji said that a small area of less than 300 square meters could reap about a ton of sea sponges annually, or about $500,000.

“We call on the Environment Ministry to stop the company from polluting our sea, and ask them to pay for the damage already done,” he said. The Environment Ministry could not be reached for comment.

Hajj also highlighted the impact of a polluted environment on the economy. “We don’t want to close down any factory,” she said. “We’re simply asking them to switch to cleaner technology and not import the world’s dirty industries to our country.”

She said that chemical fertilizer plants were being shut down in Europe due to their negative impact on marine life. But Skaff claimed that similar plants were operating in Morocco and the US and “no one is shutting them down.”  “Why is it that they’re picking on us?” he asked. “Why don’t they talk about the sewage that pollutes the entire coastline? Is it only because we export 97 percent of our product and therefore threaten similar plants in the region?” he said.

“We’re not against the industry,” Hajj responded. “We’re against industrial pollution and this is the largest point-source of coastal pollution in Lebanon. It’s true that the marine life in Dora, for instance, is equally abused, but the sources of pollution there are many ­ the Dora dump site, the sewage, factories, the waste.

“I really don’t understand why the Environment Ministry is turning a blind eye to all this,” Hajj said.