Global Rundown
- Uncontained byproduct from an abandoned oil field in eastern Syria is seeping into the soil and slowly flowing closer to the Euphrates River, threatening its contamination.
- Heavy monsoon rains continue to fall on southeast Asia, triggering deadly flash flooding in Bali.
- As the global demand for gold continues to boom, so too has Mexico’s mercury mining industry — worsening the health of both workers and nearby waters.
- Minnesota will have one year to determine if the state’s current environmental policy effectively protects drinking water from nitrate pollution, a judge has ordered.
- An invasive plant species that feeds on chemical runoff has covered El Salvador’s largest wetland reservoir.
The Lead
In eastern Syria’s Deir Az Zor province, a black, toxic river meanders through the otherwise parched desert landscape. A remnant of both conflict and neglect, the spill that cuts across the devastated al-Taim oil field is a mixture of produced water and crude oil, the toxic byproduct of oil extraction. Slowly yet consistently, the liquid pollutes the earth and seeps deeper into it, contaminating aquifers below.
The oilfield was left abandoned in 2013, and years of war in Syria have destroyed any infrastructure meant to contain the byproduct, which “therefore flows unchecked, 24 hours a day…,” Al Jazeera reports. Officials and locals have called for the government to drill new disposal wells wherein the toxic byproduct can be stored. But “environmental repair does not even register on the list of priorities” for Syrian leadership at this moment in time.
Instead, the sludge has grown into a six mile-long lagoon, slowly encroaching upon the shores of the Euphrates River, just nine miles away. Experts warn that one major flood or storm could accelerate the oil field’s contamination of this major river, which flows into Iraq and is a source of drinking water and irrigation for millions of people.
Recent WaterNews from Circle of Blue
- When the West’s Rivers Surge Each Spring, Older Groundwater Dominates the Runoff — A better understanding of groundwater in the headwaters could improve streamflow predictions.
- ICE Raids in California Block Farmworker Access to Clean Water — Threat of being seized by federal agents keeps workers in hiding without adequate water supplies.
This Week’s Top Water Stories, Told In Numbers
15.2
Inches of rain that fell last week on Bali, Indonesia in a span of less than 24 hours, triggering flash floods that killed at least 17 people on the island and displaced hundreds. As summer storms intensify due to the effects of climate change, “overdevelopment and widespread deforestation are believed to be worsening the impact of flooding,” the Guardian reports.
The entire region continues to endure unprecedented damage this monsoon season. In India, the rains this year began “unusually early,” resulting in the wettest May on record in the past 125 years. Today, half of the country is experiencing flooding and hundreds have been killed in river surges and landslides. In neighboring Pakistan, roughly 2 million people have been evacuated amidst ongoing floods. Since June, more than 900 people have died in monsoon-related incidents.
200
Tons of mercury yielded each year by Mexico, the world’s second-largest producer behind only China, the Associated Press reports. Extracted from rock and cooled into a liquid, the pure metal is used by miners to draw out gold from river soil, an illegal method known to pollute waterways and whose operations are “increasingly controlled by criminal groups” across South America.
As the demand for gold rises, the price of mercury has increased more than tenfold over the past 15 years. This boom has been felt intimately in Mexico’s Sierra Gorda mountains, a biosphere reserve where mercury miners are sacrificing their health for a steady paycheck. Researchers have linked mercury exposure to multiple symptoms “including tremors, neurological decline, vision and hearing loss, [and] developmental delays in children,” and warn that the mining operations and its runoff will pollute the reserve’s soils and waters.
On the Radar
According to a judge’s order filed earlier this month, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will have one year to determine if their existing rules actually protect the state’s natural resources and drinking water from nitrate pollution, the Brainerd Dispatch reports. The two departments have agreed to comply, and will present their findings next September.
The agreement follows a lawsuit filed earlier this year by state environmental groups against the two departments, in which plaintiffs claimed the Feedlot Rule and Groundwater Protection Rule “are inadequate to protect natural resources in the state from pollution, impairment, or destruction, because these rules have not been adequate to protect groundwater in vulnerable areas of the state from dangerous levels of nitrate pollution.”
If the departments’ findings are not supported by hard evidence, the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, a plaintiff in the earlier lawsuit, has said they will challenge their conclusions in court. In July, the center published a new report on the impacts of agricultural drainage on the state’s water sources.
Wetland Watch
Lake Suchitlan: A massive effort is underway to clear the lake — El Salvador’s largest wetland reservoir and an important cultural and economic hub — of an invasive aquatic weed called water lettuce, Deutsche Welle reports. Both volunteers and navy troops are removing the weed, which has smothered the lake’s surface and turned it green. But experts say this effort is short-sighted. Water lettuce feeds on the chemical and heavy metal pollutants which flow into the lake, and curbing this runoff, they say, is the only way to make lasting progress.
