In the meantime, they live on the stragglers
Christopher Falla New York Times
Earl's Sea. The waters of the Sir Darya River will re-cover about 600 square kilometers of the exposed seabed
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After nearly half a century of studies and expressions of sorrow over the drying up of Lake Arles - one of the greatest natural disasters in the world - an international agency began to build a dike to revive part of the sea. There is a broad consensus that it is not possible to return the height of the sea to what it was before - 1960 - 22 meters above the current height. This was before the rivers that flowed into it were diverted to irrigate cotton fields and rice crops.
The World Bank is currently financing a project costing 85 million dollars to revive the northern part of Hima, known as the "Little Sea". This is the likely option, not the optimal one, and it involves giving up the "Great Sea", which is mostly dead, in the southern part. Work on the project, which is mainly the construction of a 13 km long embankment, began in July. According to the site manager on behalf of the contractor carrying out the project, Yuri Ponomarev, five kilometers will be completed by December 31 and the rest will be completed next year.
In Kokral, the uninhabited place where the Sir Darya river flows into the sea, remains of an embankment built by volunteers ten years ago remain. The embankment, made of sand without a body channel to prevent the water from passing over it and without a stone cover to prevent erosion on the seaward side, was repeatedly breached. The last time, in 1999, two people drowned there.
In the new embankment, say the contractors, the slope will be shallower on the sea side, the sand will be covered with shells and stones to stop the waves, and the structure will rise to a height of three meters above the future sea level predicted by the experts.
The waters of Sir Daria will not flow into the Great Sea, but into the Little Sea, which, according to the engineers, will rise by four meters in about four years and re-cover about 600 square kilometers of the exposed seabed. After that, the excess water will flow south again, into the Great Sea. According to experts, as a result of the project, the salinity of the Small Sea of Arles will drop to a rate of four parts per thousand to 17 parts per thousand. Today it stands at 35 parts per thousand. Many of the 24 species of fish that used to feed a fishing industry of 50 tons a year will return to the sea.
The project will bring a blessing to the Kazakh residents living near the Little Sea of Aral. In Tastobek, a fishing village of 17 families living in material houses by the sea, the residents were more fortunate than the rest of the residents of the area. After the high salinity killed almost all the fish in the lake, with the exception of the sturgeon, which was brought to Lima in the 70s due to its resistance to salt - a Danish aid program provided the residents with nets for catching the sturgeon and refrigerators to store it.
The residents, who had never seen a flatfish with two eyes on the same side before, initially reacted with dismay. "I was disgusted when I saw it for the first time," said Bayan Saitpambatova about the shttsad, "I thought it was a monster." But her husband, Duzhbai, who heads the local cooperative fishing enterprise, proudly said that he was the first person in the village to prepare the fish for consumption. The flounder, despite its delicate taste and nutritional value, sells for ten cents compared to 70 cents for the popular carp from the delta lakes. "The shatsad only keeps us alive until the rest of the fish come back," said Saitpambatov, noting that the shatsad's fishing season is only in the fall.
Barlesk, a city with a population of 35 and which used to be the main northern port of Hima
which is currently 80 km away, Dr. Marat Turmuratov, an emergency physician, said that the closing of the local canning and fishing factories brought many residents to the brink of starvation. "Almost all women are anemic, and we have a very high rate of maternal mortality," Tormuratov said, "Most people cannot afford to eat meat or fish. They live on tea and bread, and sometimes - noodles."
In addition to the restoration of the fishing industry, experts predict that the revitalization of the Little Sea of Arles will lead to increased rainfall and the expansion of pastures. It is also supposed to improve the quality of the groundwater in the area, a considerable part of which is too salty for drinking. According to health experts, this has caused an increase in the incidence of cancerous tumors in the stomach and esophagus.
Environmentalist - Earth
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