Ecological Collateral Damage

In the midst of all the horror stories emerging from Lebanon, the bombing deaths of children, pregnant women, hospital patients, farm workers, the devastation of the infrastructure and the economy, the severing of all links from the country to the outside world, this story may not seem to be a major one. But it is a story of environmental devastation that may last long after some of the other longterm effects of this brutal invasion have ameliorated.

It is the story of an oil spill that may grow to equal or surpass the devastation that occured off the coast of Alaska in the notorious Exxon Valdez spill in the eighties. The effects of that spill still linger, and it was given immediate and copious attention. This spill along the beautiful Mediterranean coastline of Lebanon, now also reaching the Syrian coast, happened over two weeks ago, and as yet no aid has reached the affected area. The entire eastern Mediterranean may be affected, and clean-up looks like it won't be able to happen until the fighting is over. This horror appears to be the result of a purposeful hit on a power plant on the part of the Israelis:

Some 110,000 barrels of oil poured into the Mediterranean two weeks ago after Israeli warplanes hit a coastal power plant. One tank is still burning, sending thick black smoke across the country. (Israeli attacks spawn environmental disaster; Bombardment unleashes oil into Mediterranean sea, killing fish, turtles.)

Cypress, Turkey and even the coastline of Greece may ultimately suffer the noxious spread of oil. The marine ecosystem off the Lebanese coast is in all probability dead, and the future of all marine life in the eastern Mediterranean is at stake. If work is not begun immediately on a massive cleanup operation, we may see permanent ecological death to one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline on the planet, and of all that lived, nested and bred on the shores and within the coastal waters, as well as the loss of economic benefit from the tourist and fishing trades. The waters that Homer once revered as the "wine-dark seas" now to become the besmirched and befouled "oil-dark seas."

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