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<Forum on the Caspian, Aral and Dead
Seas-Perspective Environmental Problems in the Area of Syrdarya and the Aral Sea N. Ishida, S. Tsujimura, H. Kubota (Kyoto
University), The environmental problems prevailing in the arid areas of Central Asia are brought on much by the creation of agricultural land out of desert which was a policy of the former USSR (FSU) after 1950s. Many reports and summaries have been produced on the developing process, the size and the form of this irrigation agriculture. However, some factors still remain unknown, such as the relation between the intake of irrigation water and its real necessary quantity, the relation between pesticide or chemical fertilizer and salinization of soil or water quality, or the real situation of the environmental disruption and its effect to man and ecosystems. Although this environmental catastrophe, the dissipation of the Aral Sea, has become one of the top subjects of the world, the elucidation of the causality is extremely behind hand in the scientific research based on the hard data of this environmental problem. The main reason of this situation is the fault of the political and social system of the FSU. The other reason comes from the difficulty and stagnation of the academic activities caused by the political and economic crisis of the Central Asian countries that became independent after the collapse of the FSU. The environmental problem of the Aral Sea cannot be solved by the concerned countries only, with respect to its size and seriousness, but requires an international cooperative research. 1. "The Aral Sea Environmental Problem" The reports that discuss "the Aral Sea environmental problem" have emerged recently one after another. Many of them start with the following plot: The shocking fact that the Aral Sea will dissipate in the near future had been introduced fragmentary so far, but the actual phenomenon had been reported both by the West and by the USSR in recent years. In short, the large scale irrigation construction developed the water usage from the Amu Darya and Syrdarya rivers, which made the Aral Sea shrink year by year because of the shortage of the necessary inflow to maintain the sea level, and as a result arose the adverse effects to the environment especially on the climate change and atmospheric dispersion of the accumulated salts on the dried bed of the Sea. The situation shows that a lot of waste was generated as a result of water usage in irrigation. The water problem in Central Asia lies in the cotton cultivation accompanied by the pollution of water caused by the use of huge amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Though the degradation of water quality is also caused by the deficient sewage treatment in each settlement, people there nonetheless have to drink the polluted water that affects their health. It is reported that the pollution has been increasing in Samarkand and Bukhala, even up to the point that the ground water is no longer suitable for drinking. The critical argument has been growing that the infant mortality of Central Asia, which is highest in the USSR, as well as the high disease prevalence is attributed to the environmental degradation caused by the promotion of cotton culture.1 An important phenomenon that is discussed in many articles, is the infant mortality rate which outlines the degree of environmental disruption. Infant mortality, shown in figure 1, is sharply higher in Central Asia than in other countries, and shows a different trend in these several decades from those of other countries. In many countries, including Japan after the WW2, infant mortality as well as other mortalities have decreased sharply because of the consolidation of a social infrastructure, repletion of public health, improvement of medical technology, etc. The opposite is true in the FSU especially in Central Asian countries where the infant mortality increased. It is presumed that the main cause of this trend is a water quality degradation by pesticides and other chemicals in the irrigated agricultural area and the Aral Sea basin. This tone of argument is generally agreed upon as was shown in the excerpt from Nakayama's article. The authors also recorded the same kind of opinion when they visited villages along the coast of the Aral Sea in 1993 to see administration chiefs or medical practitioners. At Aman-Oukkle (pop. 2,000) The quality of drinking water got worse first. The problem lies especially in the pesticide pollution, which was underlined by the administration chief and doctors. But when we asked what kind of pesticides are included and to what extent, they gave us no names of the pesticides because, according to their reply, all information is in the hygiene department of Aralsk City and they received a statement that pesticide pollution was prevailing. Such responses are the same in any village, and it seems that they do not have any information about water pollution. As for the change of the health of village people, they told us that eye diseases had been increasing due to the sand storms. Hepatic diseases, which were prevalent some 5 or 6 years ago, have decreased after they began to disinfect tap water. Sixty percent of the women have a symptom of anemia, seventy percent have contracted dyspepsia. There were 20 who had high blood pressure, and some had a heart disease, due to too much intake of salt. 40 contracted tuberculosis, 21 were pregnant and anemic. There were 35 new born babies, of which two died. At Djambul (pop. 800) Drinking water has become worse since the time the Sea dissipated. The amount of patients has increased because of the dust storms. Cancer and lung tuberculosis have increased and anemia is prevailing. 80 percent of the population is suffering from anemia. This situation is very common around the Aral Sea. Gastroenteric diseases increase during summer. We have now 5 adult patients contracting cancer, 27 suffering from lung tuberculosis, and 8 children from lung tuberculosis. Though the population structure is unknown, six to seven babies are born every year, while the infant mortality is 92-93 per 1,000. What the doctors would like to do first is to improve the drinking water. We have conducted an analysis of the water quality, but it seems that it is very difficult to improve it. There exist a plan to construct a water pipeline from Aralsk which is 120 km far from the village. The same serious situation occurs in the basin of the Aral Sea, which was confirmed in the hearing survey. What is important here, however, is that the environmental degradation and its effects are spoken everywhere without any clear causal relationship. Technicians of the water purification plant or the officers in charge of the village have not been informed of the reason of why it is impossible to use the water from Syrdarya to drink. It is also uncertain whether there exists an analysis of the water quality of Syrdarya that is enough to prove the risk. 2. Pollution in the Syrdarya Basin by Agricultural Chemicals It is difficult to estimate the types and quantity of the agricultural chemicals used in the past in Central Asia. We asked to look into it at the Kazakh Agricultural Academy of Sciences, but we have not yet been informed of sufficient data. The information on agricultural chemicals was top secret and was never made public in the FSU. Confusion subsequent to the collapse of the Union and independence of the republics may be a main cause of the disorder of statistics. The chemicals used in the area of cotton culture are roughly divided into defoliants and pesticides. Butifos is a defoliant which was used most frequently in the past, and has been paid attention to as an agent which caused pollution. It is highly toxic to plants and was sprayed as a defoliant with an intensity of 1.0 - 1.5 kg/ha. It gives an offensive smell that is similar to mercaptane. According to a report from Uzbekistan, the offensive smell spreads from the fields to the villages where people sometimes suffer from allergic reactions. It is an organo-phosphorous agent with an acute oral toxicity to rats of 325 mg/kg and it is classified as a deadly poison. Organo-phosphorous butifos affects the central nervous system, heart, liver and kidneys. It has been pointed out to disturb immunological reactivity especially in children. Hepatitis is prevalent in the cotton growing areas, and there was no way to cope with hepatitis unless cotton growing was banned. There was a warning also that even a small dose of butifos will disturb the reproductiveness of women. It is presumed that butifos provoked serious adverse effect on a large scale to the population. There is a report that reveals that in spite of the banning of the use of butifos by the USSR Ministry of Public Health in 1985, roughly 60% of Uzbekistan's fields had butifos poured on them. Since the Resolution of Banning the Use and Manufacture of Butifos in 1987, in which butifos was finally ranked as a highly dangerous compound, the use of it seems to have been stopped. In our field survey in 1994, we witnessed that butifos is not being used anymore. This compound was the most important agent from 1960s to the last half of 1980s along the Syrdarya river. But it is neither clear to what extent the state of the pollution was truly caused by butifos in the human and natural environment, nor was the relation proved between the pollution by butifos and the above mentioned "the Aral Sea environmental problem". It has not yet been clarified what effect it caused from 1987 to the present. Among the subsequent organo-phosphorous agents after butifos were phosalone, phosphamide, and others, whose effects to the environment are also still unknown. Organo-chlorine pesticides have been used in the basin of the Aral Sea on the culture fields both of cotton and rice. BHC and DDT, which were commonly used in the world, were also used in Central Asian countries and their pollution still exists in the water and at the bottom of the Amu Darya and the Syrdarya. These organo-chlorine compounds have been under investigation, to which many researchers pay attention. The Kazakh Agricultural Academy of Sciences investigated the BHC concentration along the Syrdarya river and reported that at three on-site points (Chardara in the upper stream, Kzyl-Orda in the middle, and Kazalinsk in the lower) a-BHC with concentrations of 1 - 30 ppt and g-BHC whith concentration ranging from 1 ppt to 9 ppt. were detected. This investigation shows that there is no significant difference both at the upper and lower parts of Syrdarya in the 1970s when BHC was used and after the 1970s. It should be noted in this investigation that higher concentrations were detected at Kazalinsk in 1993 than in the 1970s. What is more noteworthy is that these concentrations are not in a higher range than those of the river water (used as the source of drinking water) of Japan. It is doubtful to conclude from these measurements that the water from Syrdarya is not suitable as a source of drinking water. According to the measurements of other agricultural chemicals besides BHC, no abnormal high concentration has been detected. The bottom sediment of Syrdarya also shows a few ppt in its BHC concentration. It is impossible to conclude so far that the water pollution of Syrdarya, as well as the pollution of its bottom sediment, is the main cause of the health damage of the population. The discharge into the water environment of chemicals such as agricultural agents, makes the fishes living in the environment accumulate the chemicals. As the accumulation rate of organo-phosphorous compounds is lower than that of organo-chlorines, and as the decomposition rate of organo-phosphorouses is fast in the environment, it is a difficult task to prove the effect of it to the biosystem. A report on the accumulation of BHC and DDT (both organo-chlorines) in the fishes living in Syrdarya shows that, for example, the maximum concentration in the muscle of carps were 63 ppb of BHC and 3.88 ppm of DDT. Though these values are higher than those of Japan measured in the 1980s, their detection frequency is unknown. Taking the dietary habit of fish into consideration, it is also doubtful from these data at least, that we can discuss the relation with the health damage now in question. The above facts tell us that it is difficult from existing scientific evidences to attribute human damage along the Aral Sea, as referred to in the previous section, to the environmental pollution of agricultural chemicals used in large scale irrigation agriculture. Without an understanding of the differences between the environmental pollutions that occurred before the 1980s and those at present, and without a differentiation of the phenomena between the past and the present, the story of "the Aral Sea Tragedy" confuses the past and the present and puts off a solution for many more years. It follows from the present economic crisis that due to the inflated price of the agricultural chemicals since 1991, it is impossible for Central Asia to use them. In the cotton fields, which we visited in 1994, very little of them were used. 3. Mineral Content of Syrdarya: Is Syrdarya Unsuitable as a Source for Drinking Water? It has been assumed that the degradation of drinking water quality along the Syrdarya river is attributable to the health damage of the people in the Aral Sea basin, and that the cause of it is the increase of mineral content both of river and of ground water. For example, Nakamura says: "Though a hard epidemiological survey has not yet been followed up on the causal relationship between these diseases and environmental degradation in the basin, it is presumed that the cause (of the diseases) is the increase of salt content or agricultural chemicals in the drinking water (river and ground water) and the residual agricultural chemicals in food". Many articles, though endeavoring to understand the present situation of the environmental disruption in the irrigation agriculture, discuss from the same point of view as the cited one. The point is that we are still short of scientific evidence that proves the causality. It has been proved that the shrinkage of the Aral Sea and its subsequent increase of salinity is the cause of the destruction of all life in the sea and annihilation of the fishing industry. It has also been proved that the dried sea bottom has become a source of salt and dust storms. But there still remains a deficiency of precise investigation to identify whether the pollution of drinking water is caused by the pollution of Syrdarya river or by the pollution of underground water from which they take drinking water. Figure 2 shows the results of the water quality chemical analysis (1960 - 1993) at three on-site points of Syrdarya by the Kazakh Agricultural Academy of Sciences. There is no dramatic increase after the 1970s of the mineralization (expressed by ion content in mg/l), but it doubled over 1960s. Comparing it to the UNEP figure for former period from 1911 to 1960 which was 543 mg/l, present mineralization is 3 times higher than before 1960. The total content of Na and K is around 200 mg/l. We have to discuss in full detail whether the river water that contains such minerals, as shown in figure 2, is suitable for the source of drinking water. The Japanese standard for drinking water requires that Na should be less than 200 mg/l, and that Ca and Mg should be less than 300 mg/l in total. The content of Na of Syrdarya after 1960s has been around 200 mg/l and the sum of Ca and Mg has been around 200 mg/l. As these values have been changing little since 1970, the water quality of Syrdarya is close to the upper limit of the Japanese permissible standard for drinking water, and we have to say that it is dangerous to use the water from Syrdarya for drinking throughout the year. We have to say here again, however, that the facts and evidences opened so far are absolutely insufficient and need precise scientific discussion for the demonstration of the time series correlation between water quality of Syrdarya and the human health damage prevailing in the irrigated agricultural land of Central Asia. The present level of water purification technology also should be checked in each Central Asian country. When we visited a plant along the Syrdarya, we found that the purification did not function and the quality after the treatment was almost identical to that of Syrdarya river. In many villages along the Aral Sea people drink well water, which quality has been worsening because of the drying of the Aral Sea. In some of the villages at the mouth of Syrdarya near Aralsk, Na content of the well water exceeds 4,000 mg/l which is unsuitable for drinking. Cities like Aralsk can have a pipeline through which water comes from the well remote from the sea. Small settlements like Djambul which is north of the Aral Sea cannot afford to install such waterworks and have to depend on the well whose water is unsuitable for drinking. As such settlements are spread out over the vast territory, people's health damage will reach an advanced stage unless the small scale water purifying equipment that can be managed by the settlements is introduced now. The environmental disruption around the Aral Sea, followed by the adverse effects on the ecosystem to which mankind belongs, is the tragedy of the century. The lack of research activity and the lack of the scientific result to clarify the damage makes the tragedy more serious. "The Aral Sea environmental problem" which was introduced in the beginning should not be narrated as a story, but should be demonstrated with scientific survey results. More detailed surveys should be followed up on each subject with which states, regions, cities, and villages are confronted. There is no denying in the fact that the water quality of Syrdarya has become worse. We have to examine then what kind of chemicals are polluting the water, whether or not it is suitable for drinking, or by which purifying technique will the water be made drinkable. The Aral Sea Tragedy spread all over the world and has become a subject of considerable concern. Now we are in the further stages where we have to deal with the tragedy not as a story but to start full investigation for the solution.
Figure 1: Infant Mortalities in Uzbekistan and Others (per 1000 infants)
Figure 2: Flow Rate and Quality of the Water of Syrdarya River (1960 - 1993) References: Goldman, M.L., (1972) The Spoils of Progress: Environmental Pollution in the Soviet Union, published by M.I.T. Press. T. Nakamura (1991) White paper of the Modern USSR; Nationalism, Environment, and Its Republics, pp. 92-95, Kokin Pub., (in Japanese). UNEP (1991) The Aral Sea, Diagnostic Study for the Development of an Action Plan for the Conservation of the Aral Sea. Sokolov, Vladimir (1986) Nature and Us: Toxicosis of the Conscience, The current Digest of the Soviet Press 38 (36). ---------------
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