It’s a genuine challenge to come up with adjectives, which haven’t been used thousands of times before, to describe the multitude of fiascos in Iraq. They each appear more painful than the last. Consider, for example, the story of the Mosul Dam.
The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.
Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. “The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability,” in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.
U.S. officials are aware of the disaster-waiting-to-happen, and initiated a $27 million reconstruction project to help shore up the dam. So what happened? “Incompetence and mismanagement” have marred the project.
The Army Corps of Engineers’ draft report describes this as “the most dangerous dam in the world,” adding, “If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely.”
But wait, there’s more. Iraqi and U.S. officials realize how serious the situation is, but have decided not to tell Iraqis, for fear of scaring them.
The debate has taken place largely out of public view because both Iraqi and U.S. Embassy officials have refused to discuss the details of safety studies — commissioned by the U.S. government for at least $6 million — so as not to frighten Iraqi citizens.
I’m not an expert on such matters, but if a trillion-gallon wave of water may burst through an unsafe dam and put much of Mosul under 20 meters of water, shouldn’t the Iraqi citizens be frightened? Maybe if these citizens knew, the problem may be more likely to get fixed in a hurry?
Also, Ilan Goldenberg raised a good point: “I hope this dam has some serious security around it. If it doesn’t, it should.” Quite right. If even a “small problem” could cause dam failure, officials need to keep a close eye on intentional problems.
For what it’s worth, the dam has been a problem for decades, due in large part to the fact that it was built on top of something called a “gypsum,” which, as the WaPo explained, “dissolves when it comes into contact with water.” Not exactly what one looks for in a dam.
Almost immediately after the dam was completed in the early 1980s, engineers began injecting the dam with grout, a liquefied mixture of cement and other additives. More than 50,000 tons of material have been pumped into the dam since then in a continual effort to prevent the structure, which can hold up to 3 trillion gallons of water, from collapsing.
As Swopa concluded, “Wait a second… a massive undertaking built on an inherently contradictory and unstable foundation… requiring exhaustive efforts just to keep from falling apart completely… this reminds me of something! Just wish I could put my finger on what…”
