Environmental Cleanup a Humanitarian Need in Iraq

GENEVA, Switzerland, April 24, 2003 (ENS) - Now that major military combat operations in Iraq have ended, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a new report today addressing post-conflict risks to the environment and to human health, and offering guidelines for immediate relief and long term environmental management.

The UNEP report, known as the Desk Study on Environment in Iraq, was produced by the UNEP Post-Conflict Assessment Unit. Without blame, it focuses on environmental and technical matters, and urges that immediate measures be taken to address humanitarian issues.

"Environmental protection is a humanitarian issue," said UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer. "Not only do environmental hazards threaten human health and well being, but they can impede aid operations."

Iraqi children wave as water is delivered to their village. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Quinton Burris courtesy U.S. Air Force)

"The intent is not to attach blame for various environmental problems," the report says. Instead, it gives an overview of chronic and war related environmental issues, and identifies urgent steps needed to safeguard the environment.

"Timeliness is paramount," the report states. The UNEP Post-Conflict Assessment Unit has conducted similar studies in the Balkans and the Palestinian Territory, and says those assessments show that immediate environmental consequences must be addressed as soon as possible to avoid further deterioration of humanitarian and environmental conditions.

"Many environmental problems in Iraq are so alarming that an immediate assessment and a cleanup plan are needed urgently," said Pekka Haavisto, the study chairman, and a former Finnish environment minister. "The environment must be fully integrated into all reconstruction plans if the country is to achieve a strong and sustainable recovery," he said.

Top priorities include environmental issues that have a direct link with easing the humanitarian situation - restoration of water, power, and sanitation networks, and ensuring food security.

Also as a priority, the report recommends a scientific assessment of sites struck with weapons containing depleted uranium (DU), which is about 60 percent as radioactive as uranium that has not been depleted by previous uses.

U.S. tank patrols West Baghdad (Photo courtesy U.S. Air Force)

Meanwhile, the report recommends that UNEP guidelines on how to minimize the risk of accidental exposure to DU be distributed immediately to military and personnel, and to the general public.

The current Iraq conflict has added to the chronic environmental stresses that have accumulated in the country over the past two decades, the UNEP report says. The environment shows severe damage from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the 1991 Gulf War, environmental mismanagement by the former Iraqi regime, and the economic impact of UN sanctions restricting sales of Iraqi oil that were put in place after the first Gulf War.

Iraq's multiple military conflicts have also resulted in large and widespread quantities of military debris, including unexploded ordnance, UNEP warns.

The destruction of military and industrial infrastructure during Iraq's various conflicts has released heavy metals and other hazardous substances into the air, soil, and freshwater supplies. An assessment of the country's chemical risks and levels of environmental contamination has yet to be conducted.

The UNEP desk study identifies the accumulation of physical damage to the country's environmental infrastructure as a major threat. The destruction of water and sanitation systems has led to higher levels of pollution and health risks, and there has been a lack of investment to repair the damages, the investigators found.

Continuous electricity cuts have often stopped the pumps that remove sewage and circulate freshwater, the desk study observes. Power outages have also affected the pumps that remove saline water from irrigated lands in the southern floodplain, leading to widespread water logging and salinization.

An oil well on fire in southern Iraq (Photo courtesy British Department of Defence)

Military bombing plus vehicle and troop movements have disturbed the desert's hard packed surface, exposing the underlying sand which erodes or blows away.

Meanwhile, transboundary pollution and a lack of river basin management have led to the degradation of Iraq's major waterways, UNEP concludes.

The report calls for building a knowledge base for tackling chronic environmental problems, building strong national institutions, and building capacities for long term environmental management.

UNEP's report on the environmental situation in Iraq was initiated at a humanitarian meeting convened in Geneva in February by the government of Switzerland, which has also financed the desk study. Since then, UNEP's proposal for conducting a full scale assessment in Iraq has been included within the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs' flash appeal for the humanitarian requirements of the Iraq crisis, launched on March 28.

The desk study is available in English at: http://postconflict.unep.ch.