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 Caspian quartet Four-part essay on the environmental demise of the Caspian Sea May 24, 2002 The Iranian Part I: The Alarm Part II, Part III, Part IV The Caspian Sea is a huge body of water: It is as large as Japan and contains some 78,000 cubic kilometer of water. As self-cleansing as it has been in the centuries past, it is no longer to be viewed as a bottomless pit. Under the aegis of the UNESCO, in 1998, the Cousteau Society sent an expedition to the Caspian Sea in order to inventory the basin's environmental woes. It noted in its summary report that "[t]he Caspian is at a critical point and its treasures are in danger, but it would be hyperbolic to call the situation 'catastrophic' or irreversible.'" True, hyperbole distorts the actual picture, but so do politically-correct statements designed to be mindful of the sensitivities of the riparian governments, whose goodwill UNESCO and the Cousteau Society may require in the future projects. Exactly when does environmental degradation become irreversible and does anyone really know the "point of no return" for the people and other living inhabitants of the basin? As it being a "catastrophic" situation, well, judge for yourself:  There are signs of epidemic thyroid problems among the
populations inhabiting the northeastern shores of the Caspian. In 1999-2000 alone
some 16,000 seals washed up dead on the shores of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan; the
oil companies were only too happy to agree with the preliminary assessment that the
blame for this slaughter lay with pesticide poisoning. The Caspian oil and gas industry itself discharges well in excess of some 4,500 tons of oil products annually into the Caspian, while nature alone contributes somewhere between 200,000 to 6 million tons of oil and tar in the form of natural seepage. Then there is an annual discharge of 28,000 tons of sulfites, 315,000 tons of chlorides, 25,000 tons of phenol, and dangerous levels of arsenic, pesticides, baron, selenium, and mercury. No doubt, the Caspian Sea is a cesspool and almost all of the blame for the eco-terrorism inflicted on this basin in the last ten years rests with the irresponsible policies of the totalitarian regimes in Moscow, Baku, Tehran, Astana, and Ashgabat. There are overall 200 large enterprises and 100 large urban areas around the Caspian littoral, which together contribute annually some 8 cubic kilometers of waste water to the sea. Baku alone, with a population base of 1.5 million, spills daily 15,000 cubic meters of untreated sewage into the sea. In the first six months of 1997 alone Baku's industrial and commercial waste accounted for some 580 million cubic meters from over 40 industrial factories and refineries, and it made its way to the Caspian. The Iranian coast boasts some 120 urban and rural areas, with a population of 6 million; 4 of the urban areas alone account for 400 million tons of waste water making its way into the Caspian. Finally, there is the Volga River: It provides some eighty percent of the Caspian's water intake, but with that water also comes pollutants and effluent of every description, including radioactive waste, which the Volga collects along its course through Russia's industrial and agriculture districts. If p represents a threshold level of unacceptable pollution, then the Volga as it pours into the Caspian is at 4p. The pollution off the Kazakh coast measures generally at 2p but up to 10-16p in some other areas. In Daghestan, a Russian federation republic, the level is 60-100p in the worst areas and 2-10p in others. Off Azerbaijan, the pollution is at 16p. There is no reliable data about the level of pollution in the waters off the Iranian mainland other than perhaps the level of pollution there too is about twice the acceptable level. Considering the wind patterns and hydrographical factors, the southern Caspian basin generally is the recipient of more pollution than it emits itself, but its greater water volume tends to dilute the concentrations of pollutants and effluent. The basic reliable data about the pollution levels of the Caspian Sea date back to 1991 and more will be required in order to fashion a salvage operation. The Cousteau Society expedition in 1998 was a welcome development in that it brought the ecological woes of the Caspian to international attention. From it came the movement under the CITES treaty regime to save the sturgeon from extinction, with some mixed results. There is still a long way to go, however, for the costal countries to implement effective fisheries management policies: In the intervening decade since the demise of the Soviet Union only Iran and Russia have done their part to remedy the fisheries situation, with Iran having shown a far greater commitment to end poaching and over-fishing.  There is an international institutional program being
developed in order to promote environmentally sustainable development and management
of the Caspian environment, including living resources and water quality. The program
is called the Caspian Environment Program (CEP) and is described as a partnership
between the Caspian riparian states, private sector (specifically oil and gas industry),
all three Global Environment Facility implementing agencies (United Nations Development
Program, United Nations Environment Program, and The World Bank), and the European
Union. A four year project (1999-2003), it has a total financing of $21.1 million
and so far nothing to show for it other than typical World Bank-style strategic project
plans and verbiage. If a picture were worth a thousand words, more than any Cousteau Society report or CEP document could ever portray, then the urgency of the need for the Caspian to go on dialysis is best told by the pictures in the photo essay entitled "The Rise and Fall of the Caspian Sea" published in the May 1999 edition of the National Geographic. See Part II, Part III, Part IV Author Mirfendereski is the author of A Diplomatic History of the Caspian Sea (New York and London: Palgrave, 2001). The author acknowledges the material available on www.eia.doe.gov, www.caspianstudies.com, and www.savecaspiansea.com. This piece is being published contemporaneously in IranFile (London: June 2002.)
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