Oil leak in northern Iraq pipeline polluting Tigris river
Mark Graffis
TIKRIT, Iraq (AFP) Jan 30, 2004
http://www.terradaily.com/2004/040130141314.e2hw31ja.html
Oil engineers were Friday plugging a leak in a northern Iraq pipeline which
is polluting the Tigris river, one of the country's main sources of water, a
US military spokeswoman said.
"There is a leak unfortunately, right where it crosses over the river, north
of Baiji," the main refinery town for Iraq's northern oil fields, said Major
Josslyn Aberle from the 4th Infantry Division that patrols the area.
She said a faulty weld in the pipeline was causing oil to spill into the
Tigris at the Fathah bridge. Large black plates of oil could be seen flowing
in the muddy waters of the river, dozens of miles (kilometres) downstream.
"The North Oil Company has put up a float barrier to try to contain the leak
but some of the oil is seeping through the barrier," Aberle said.
US army engineers who located the leak could not say how much oil has poured
into the Tigris, from which water is treated and distributed throughout the
country.
The river has frequently been polluted by leaks or rainwater carrying oil
from residual pools.
Experts have warned that further contamination of Iraq's two main rivers --
the Tigris and the Euphrates -- could pose a serious health threat and cause
irreversible damage to the sensitive ecology of the Mesopotamian marshes.
TERRA.WIRE