World Bank Gives Kazakhstan Loan to Save Aral Sea

The Aral Sea used to be a big body of fresh water, the fourth largest inland sea on planet Earth. Then, the communist economic planners of the Soviet Union got into the act. By diverting two rivers that fed the Aral to irrigate cotton crops, the Soviets started drying the sea up. By the 1990s, 75% of the sea was gone and fishing villages were miles from the retreating shore. Were it not for Chernobyl, the Aral disaster would be the biggest man-made environmental disaster in the world (and the UN disagrees, saying the Aral is worse). Thanks to a loan from the World Bank, at least part of the Aral Sea is coming back.

According to the BBC, in the 1960s, “the Soviet government held a plenary session in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, during which the Deputy Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources of the USSR talked about the government plans for boosting the region's cotton production. The two main Central Asian rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya, he said, would be diverted to irrigate the cotton plantations in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. ‘But what will happen to the Aral?’ someone from the audience shouted. ‘The Aral,’ the deputy minister responded, ‘will have to die off gracefully’.” The Soviet Union was known for a distinct lack of sensitivity.

Whether it was dying off gracefully or not, it was certainly dying off. The Aral Sea level dropped until the sea actually split in two in 1987. An artificial channel was dug to reconnect them, but by 1999, the North Aral and South Aral Seas had shrunk further, making the channel irrelevant. In 2003, the South Aral Sea split in two (it now has an Eastern and Western Basin) as the Uzbekistan side of the sea continues to shrink.

In 2005, the Kazakh government built a dam that has kept much of the water in the North Aral, meaning the water level rose from 98 feet to 125 feet within about a year (138 feet is considered the level necessary to save the sea). Salinity has also dropped meaning fish stocks have recovered, and the northern part of the sea is returning to its original state – at least, it’s headed in that direction.

The World Bank has approved a new $125 million loan for a second dam on the Kazakh side that will further improve things for the North Aral Sea. Estimates are that on the poorer Uzbek side, the western basin of the South Aral Sea will be gone in 15 years, and the eastern basin could be sustainable indefinitely. While there are grounds for optimism, the truth is that no matter what happens, only parts of the Aral Sea can be saved. Better, wiser decisions a long time ago could have prevented it entirely. Now, it’s too late for that.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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