An Illegal oil refinery in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, 2018. Photo: Kurdistan24 TV
LAJANE HARKI, Iraqi Kurdistan Region – It’s the smell that hits you first on arriving in the quiet farming village of Lajane Harki on the Gwer Road some 10 kilometers west of Erbil. The acrid odor from dozens of oil refineries – both legal and illegal – burns the nasal passages and lingers long after you’ve left. But the families who live here have no escape.
“Venom is better than breathing this air,” says Lazgin Mohammed Aziz. An onion farmer and father of three, Aziz supplements his income by collecting scrap metal to sell.
On a late summer morning, he was sorting through refuse piled in a spot surrounded by oil refineries, many of which have this month started to operate at night in a bid to avoid government scrutiny. While the sun is high, the air is marginally clear, but when the sun sets Aziz says they cannot step outside their homes because of the toxic smoke. His brother’s baby recently died at just two weeks old. The family blames pollution from the refineries.
Crude oil is trucked to the facilities from the Region’s oilfields where it is heated in large distillation columns. The cheap petroleum and other products produce here are shipped off for domestic use or for sale in Iran and Central Asia, while the byproducts are belched into the atmosphere.
A year ago, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) began a crackdown on the illegal refineries that wreak havoc on the environment, ordering 164 outfits to shut their gates.
Fears that the continued sale of oil and its byproducts to Iran could expose the Region to US sanctions likely played a role in this decision.
The move has seen some success and in August the new government formed a committee to reassess and possibly expand the number of refineries it will shut down. But it will take much more than just locking the gates to clean up the toxic legacy of the refineries that have been pumping poison into the water, soil, and air for 16 years.
Razzaq Azeez Khailany, Director of Technical Affairs at the Kurdistan Region’s Environmental Protection and Improvement Board (EPIB), sits on the government committee along with representatives from the Ministries of Natural Resources (MNR), Agriculture, and Interior. About 50 of the illegal refineries are now closed, he said.
The government committee is reassessing the list of those slated for closure and the 28 that MNR in 2015 recommended could be licensed based on their capacity, environmental impact, and market demands. The number of potential licensees could drop, according to Khailany.
The committee has met twice as of mid-September and it’s work has just begun, so Khailany can’t put a timeline on the process, but stressed the government is serious about following through on the crackdown and forcing the illegal operators to clean up the mess they created.
A Kurdish man, Lazgin Mohammed Aziz , supplements his farming income by collecting scrap metal to sell near Lajane Harki village, Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, September 18, 2019. Photo: Rudaw
Both legal and illegal operations exist near Lajane Harki, steadily growing in number since the United States toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. They have had a devastating impact on village life.
“The impact is big,” says Maqsoud Tofiq Fathi, village mukhtar (chieftain) for some 2,000 residents. “There have been 63 or 64 miscarriages. My family has had four miscarriages.” Cases of respiratory illnesses like asthma are on the rise, as are deaths from cancer. “We had maybe a death once in ten years. Now it’s every year,” he said.
Villagers say they have staged several protests against the refineries, but they still can’t breathe. Some believe the closures are proceeding at a snail’s pace because refineries are owned by influential people with ties to those in power. “Even if we file a complaint, nothing can happen. Many times TV channels came. Nothing changed,” said farmer Aziz.
Fathi, the mukhtar, is hopeful new Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s no-nonsense reputation from his years heading up the Kurdistan Region Security Council will help him succeed in snuffing out the toxic refineries. “People [refinery owners] are afraid of him,” said Fathi. “I have very high hopes for him.”
Local farmers need a strong advocate who will ensure their fields are cleaned and they are compensated for damaged crops and lost income.
Just outside of Lajane Harki, a small cluster of fields is cut by a bumpy, gravel route bringing oil tankers to a dozen refineries. A ditch separates the road from Mamo Ayub’s tomato field. The water in the ditch flows black – carrying waste from the refineries to the Great Zab River.
This past spring saw heavy rainfall that flooded the stream, sending a wave of polluted water into Ayub’s field. Patches of his soil now reek of oil and nothing grows there. He relies on a well to water his crop, but the damage from the refinery waste has been done. He has not been able to sell any of his tomatoes this year.
“Nobody comes to the aid of the poor. It’s all lies,” he says, shaking his head as he walks through his damaged field.
The operators of the shuttered refineries “will be responsible for cleaning the damage they caused to the environment,” says Hallo Askari, head of the environment board (EPIB). None, however, have yet been forced to cough up for a cleanup operation, he acknowledged. The previous government also proposed 200 million dinars ($168,000) for the task. That money has not yet been made available, according to Khailany.
In Lajane Harki village, where they are losing their lives and income, time is running out and villagers are angry.
“Chemical Ali bombed Halabja once,” says farmer Yassin Khan Abdel, referring to Ali Hassan al-Majid, Iraqi defence minister under Saddam Hussein who was responsible for the 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish city that killed at least 5,000 people.
“These people bomb us with poison every day.”
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