In keeping with this irresponsible, even criminal nonchalance, Iraqi authorities have done next to nothing to prepare for a possible collapse.
By DANIEL PIPESWater(photo credit: INGIMAGE)
No, it’s not Islamic State or rampaging Shi’ite militias.It’s the Mosul Dam, Iraq’s largest, and its possible collapse, perhaps leading to millions of deaths. Those in the know worry catastrophe could strike this spring, as snows melt and build an uncontrollable water pressure.Hastily built in wartime for the dictator Saddam Hussein by a German- Italian consortium, the Mosul Dam was located where it is because one of Hussein’s cronies came from the area and used his pull, despite the fact that engineers knew from the start that its porous gypsum base could not sustain such a huge structure.What was then called the Saddam Dam opened in 1984 and within two years needed constant grouting, that is, day and night infusions of microfine cement, lots of it – 200 million pounds over the decades – to keep it from collapsing. The grouting keeps the foundational problem from worsening but does not solve it.The years went by; fortunately, there was no disaster on the American watch. Then, during a fateful 10-day period, August 7-17, 2014, Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of the dam. While the group neither sabotaged nor blew up the structure, grouting stopped for six weeks and the whole repair regime – especially the skilled workers and the supply of cement – henceforth became less consistent.As a result, the dam has steadily weakened over the past 19 months, to the point that experts worry that a surge of spring waters will overwhelm it and cause its collapse. That the dam’s two emergency floodgates are broken and cannot be opened to relieve intense pressure renders the situation the more fraught.The consequences of a collapse are terrifying: A wall of water 13-20 feet high would reach Mosul, a city of some one million inhabitants, in about four hours. Then the flood wave would roll down the Tigris River valley to other cities, including the capital Baghdad, before dispersing in a wide flood. A huge number of immediate casualties would be followed by drought, disease, lack of electricity, chaos and crime, ensuring biblical-level miseries and fatalities.For years, quiet grouting and blithe assurances kept the precariousness of the Mosul Dam obscure.But heightened alarms coming from the US government since the start of 2016, relying primarily on US Army Corps of Engineers estimates, appear finally to have awakened Iraqis to the dangers they face. The US embassy in Baghdad has even issued a highly unusual “Mosul Dam Preparedness Fact Sheet” with advice (in English, alas) on evacuation steps, educational needs and relief efforts.In contrast, the Iraqi government issues a stream of dishonest assurances that there’s no problem.