The World's Fourth Largest Inland Body of Water Has Disappeared

[RKP5637]

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/aral-sea/synnott-text?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_fb20150518ngm-aralsea&utm_campaign=Content&sf9375680=1

For millennia the Aral Sea reigned as one of the planet’s largest inland bodies of water, straddling what is now Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Today its decline serves as a cautionary tale.
By Mark Synnott
Photographs by Carolyn Drake

“This is what the end of the world looks like,” says Yusup Kamalov, sweeping his hand toward the scrub-covered desert stretching before us. “If we ever have Armageddon, the people of Karakalpakstan are the only ones who will survive, because we are already living it.”

From our perch atop this sandy bluff in northern Uzbekistan, the view could be of just about any desert—that is, if it weren’t for the mounds of seashells and the half dozen marooned fishing boats rusting into the sand. This spot was once the tip of a peninsula jutting into the Aral Sea, which up until the 1960s was the world’s fourth largest inland body of water, covering some 26,000 square miles—an area larger than the state of West Virginia. Behind us lies the town of Muynoq, formerly a thriving fishing village with a sprawling cannery that even as recently as the 1980s processed thousands of tons of fish annually. Fifty years ago the southern shore of the Aral was right where we stand; now it lies 55 miles away to the northwest.

Kamalov has brought me here to see what’s left of the once bountiful sea. He’s a 64-year-old senior researcher in wind energy at the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences. He’s also an environmental activist, chairing the Union for the Defense of the Aral Sea and Amu Darya. Heavyset, with a flowing mane of white hair, Kamalov descends from an influential Uzbek family: His father was a renowned historian during the Soviet era, and his grandfather was the last elected khan, or leader, of the semiautonomous republic of Karakalpakstan before it became part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic during the 1930s.

[jeff47]

1. For those wondering where it went...

The USSR diverted the rivers that fed the sea into very poorly constructed irrigation canals. Something like 60-70% of the water is lost on the way to irrigate desert areas in an attempt to grow crops like cotton.

Even today, only 12% of the irrigation canals are waterproofed. So they leak lots and lots of water along the way to the farms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

[Buzz Clik]

3. +1

[RKP5637]

4. + 1,000 n/t

[FrodosPet]

5. It's America's fault

We should have done more to help the USSR so they would not have had to grow cotton.

[hughee99]

7. Chomsky couldn't have said it better himself. Nt

[7962]

63. You really come up with some good ones. Wish I could think that fast!!

But some here will probably think you're serious !!!

[Aerows]

23. Exactly

It was a poorly engineered effort that lead to this.

[NaturalHigh]

26. Yes. I actually thought it was already gone last year.

[Buzz Clik]

2. The Soviets' final gift to the region. At the heart of the loss of the Aral Sea?

Irrigated cotton:

[HuckleB]

13. It brings another meaning to the saying, "Cotton Kills."

[snooper2]

46. You should read the whole article- forced labor for cotton

The cotton harvests continue today. Each fall about two million of Uzbekistan’s 29 million citizens “volunteer” to pick millions of bushels of the nation’s cotton crop. The country virtually shuts down while government employees, schoolchildren, teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers, and even senior citizens are bused to the fields to reap their daily quota.

“Uzbekistan is one of the only places we know of in the world where forced labor is actually organized and enforced by the government, and the president himself is acting as a trafficker in chief,” said Steve Swerdlow, director of the Central Asia bureau of Human Rights Watch.

[HuckleB]

50. I did. I'm not sure why you though otherwise.

[valerief]

48. Tom Cotton anyway. nt

[Rex]

6. Don't be sad Vault Dweller!

[Warren DeMontague]

8. That's why I prefer my dystopian nightmares underwater.

[Rex]

9. The last one was in the sky and on rails.

[NuclearDem]

11. Sorry for the Vault Dweller? Imagine how the Lone Wanderer must feel.

Makes the Purifier completely unnecessary.

[Rex]

12. True but without the Vault Dweller, there would have been no Chosen One.

No NCR, The Master would be in control with his super mutant army!

[jeff47]

24. Pfft. We got robots in Vegas to take care of your damn NCR.

Got the programming right on this poker chip. Hey, what's that sound behind me?

[Amishman]

72. no need for your robots

I took care of the NCR and Caesar while taking a walk through the Divide.

[NuclearDem]

73. Oh, you're one of those Independent Vegas types.

You're better off with the Republic and you know it.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. I read that Nat Geo article about an hour ago

It's sad. And the guide who was taking the reporters through the area, was somewhat concerned about repercussions for discussing what had happened over the decades that caused that, including adding the part about the forced labor required of everyone in the area to pick that cotton. But then he basically said he was tired of it (the whole situation).

[tclambert]

14. No, no, no, it can't be from human activity, according to Sen. "Snowball" Inhofe.

Inhofe said, "God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous." He quotes an obscure Bible verse to support this thesis. So, there you see, humans couldn't possibly be responsible for the Aral Sea drying up--not even godless communists.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

20. this was not climate change

this was the Soviets re-routing the rivers that fed the sea to irrigate crops.

sP

[tclambert]

29. It's still humans changing God's world . . . according to scientists.

Therefore, the Senator, from a state that went from 2 earthquakes a year to 2 earthquakes a day due to fracking, would insist it violates Biblical teaching. Plus, it certainly changed the local climate from a wet seaside area to a dry, desert area with toxic dust storms.

[Helen Borg]

15. So, if they just undivert the water...

It should come back, right?

[RKP5637]

17. No idea. I was wondering the same. n/t

[project_bluebook]

21. The opposite happened in California

an irrigation ditch sprung a leak and created the Salton Sea.

[progressoid]

37. And that's drying up too.

[CreekDog]

54. yeah but the Salton Sea wasn't natural body of water

[jeff47]

27. It would take a very long time.

You might fill the basin in several decades, but the salinity and pH will be wrong for a long time. In the meantime, you'll have shredded the agricultural economy created by diverting the water. And you won't have a "lake" economy yet to replace it.

This isn't going to be easy to undo.

[mrdmk]

33. Here is what happened with pictures

[BlueEye]

94. Note Vozrozdenhiya Island...

Home of the infamous Soviet bioweapons factory. The U.S. went in and wiped out all the anthrax in 2002, according to Wikipedia. Hope they got it all

[valerief]

49. No. Rich cottoners would lose money then. nt

[Warpy]

78. And thousands of Uzbek farmers starve to death

The Aral Sea was vulnerable because it was large and shallow and fed by only one stream. The northwestern part was considerably deeper and damming the southeastern end of it has preserved what's left of it, much to the dismay of everyone who lives on what used to be the south Aral Sea. The dam has been a success, allowing fish to return to the north Aral Sea, but it has also made sure the south has continued to dry up even faster.

Water levels have risen quickly enough in the north Aral Sea that eventually water might be released back into the south. However, only by coming up with another strategy to grow crops in Uzbekistan will they allow south sea to return completely, along with the fish it used to supply the region.

At least as it exists now, it is forcing engineers around the world to think large scale water projects through a little more completely than they have in the past.

The Uzbek government seems completely unconcerned by the devastation.

[1939]

16. This one you can't blame on capitalism or corporations.

This one is the fault of government unaided.

[RKP5637]

18. Yep!!! n/t

[project_bluebook]

19. Damned communists!

[blackspade]

53. Actually it is a result of State Based Capitalism.

Capitalism is intimately connected to government just as much as private enterprise.

[fasttense]

55. I was thinking the same thing

In this case, the government officials took the place of the CEOs, board of directors and major shareholders. Capitalism corrupted them as much as capitalism corrupts the capitalist. If they had put the decision making authority in the hands of the workers, it may not have had such a devastating affect.

[FrodosPet]

69. Putting the decision making authority in the hands of the workers

I hear that a lot, but I am trying to figure out how that works in a practical sense.

Would you have referendums and/or ballot proposals instead of legislation? Are the ballots going to become mini phone books, as EVERY managerial position becomes a popularly elected position?

Would you have mandatory voting so that the vote represents the maximum number of people? And if you do, would they just be able to submit partially or completely blank ballots if they don't feel sufficiently informed, or if they just want to say "Eff it, I don't care"?

[blackspade]

83. It's called democracy in the workplace.

Look up Mondragon a Spanish worker owned company for details on how it works.

[FrodosPet]

87. So, a free market enterprise with employee ownership

As opposed to ownership of the means of production by the state.

Yes, I have been reading about Mondragon. Lots of good things about the concept, but it is not invincible to market forces.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21589469-collapse-spains-fagor-tests-worlds-largest-group-co-operatives-trouble-workers

Trouble in workers’ paradise

The collapse of Spain’s Fagor tests the world’s largest group of co-operatives
Nov 9th 2013 | MADRID

NEWS that Spain’s largest appliance-maker is heading for bankruptcy will not come as a complete shock in the crisis-ridden country. Yet Fagor is a special case. It is part of Mondragon, the world’s biggest group of worker-owned co-operatives. Nestled in the green hillsides of the town of the same name, in the Basque country, Mondragon has won many awards and much praise as a shining alternative to shareholder capitalism and a bastion of workplace democracy during its six decades of history.

Now, one of the group’s key principles—of solidarity among its 110 constituent co-ops—has found its limit. Fagor has lost money for five years and has run up debts of €850m ($1.2 billion). Its sales have fallen sharply because of Spain’s property bust and low-cost competition from Asia. Even pay cuts of over 20% have not been enough to turn it around. Its factories all ceased production three weeks ago.

In the past, losses in one part of the group have been covered by the others, but this time Fagor’s pleas for a €170m lifeline were rejected, even though the Spanish and Basque governments were ready to step in as part of the rescue. Eroski, another co-operative in the Mondragon group and one of Spain’s largest retailers, is also struggling in the face of stiff competition, and it and two other co-ops vetoed Fagor’s plan.

~ snip ~

Fagor, with 5,600 workers, is a relatively small part of the whole. Even so, Mr Treviño warns that its fall “will have an uncontrollable domino effect on the rest of the group with major social implications.” He believes Fagor’s liquidation would create a €480m hole at Mondragon, including inter-group loans and payments the group’s insurance arm would have to make on Fagor workers’ unemployment policies. Mondragon has promised to find new jobs or offer early-retirement terms for as many as it can of Fagor’s Spanish workers, but this is a tall order in a country with 27% unemployment. Besides their jobs, workers stand to lose the money they had invested in the co-op if it is liquidated.

~ snip ~

[fasttense]

90. You would have the workers, the employees decide how the businesses

Would run. They would vote on policies like how much more than the lowest paid worker should the CEO make. They would have general assemblies so everyone could vote. They could also have smaller groups that would go out and study issues and report back. They would decide how to spend the profits. And that profit is what is so corrupting to government officials. Your government could be democratic with voting processes much like we have now but without the corrupting influence of capitalist greed and bribery.

[FrodosPet]

95. So we replace capitalist greed and bribery with socialist greed and bribery?

In any society, there will be people who want more than they are getting. They want power, they want material possession, they want adoration.

The co-op thing, I can get behind. Worker owned cooperatives acting in a free market environment. They have a direct interest and accountability in the success of the venture. My problem is more with central planning and state ownership of entities that should be in the realm of private enterprise. The roads, the bridges, the public spaces, police, fire, military, those should be publically owned and controlled. But manufacturing, agriculture, retail need atomized control. They need to be subject to failure if they are not responsive to the needs and desires of their customers.

[fasttense]

96. I agree somewhat

No, I don't want the government to own all the means of production like capitalist do now. I think it would and did (using the USSR as an example) end up corrupting the government officials and all levels of government. The initial idea in Russia before the dictators took over, was for the state to own the means of production. State officials took over the roles of capitalists and owners. The worker in a factory was doing the exact same thing before and after the communist revolution. The difference was only in who his boss was. Instead of a capitalist it was a communist official who ran the factory. They thought if the government officials were corrupt, then they would be voted out. They didn't realize that much money and control in the hands of a few was very corrupting. To the point that their voting process became corrupt much like ours is today.

So what I am proposing is that neither the government nor the capitalist owns the means of production. The workers in mass would own it and control it. Whoever worked there, would get a say in every aspect of the business. For 4 days a week they would do their jobs, and on the 5th day they would do all the voting, deciding on policies, committees and deciding what to do with the profits.

Yes there are greedy and evil people everywhere. Yes, some of them will try and take over. But if everyone who works there gets a vote, then those greedy evil people will for the most part be kept in check. Because the really big money will be in the really big corporations and they would have a huge number of people to con in order to take over. Now they would probably get to corrupt some of the smaller businesses but eventually they would be caught.

This is NOT utopia I'm describing. There will still be nonprofits and government functions and free enterprise. Too many people equate free enterprise with capitalism. The only difference would be that workers NOT corporate CEOs and board of directors would run and own all businesses.

I would add to this that farming needs to be looked at as a government function or at least not a profit making business. Our current farming systems are destroying our planet. We need to encourage farmers to grow sustainable with the future of the planet in the forefront of their plans. Right now it is a free for all. Huge corporations run huge machines in vast waste lands of mono-crops, killing birds, fish, frogs, bees, butterflies and anything else that gets in their way. They ship those crops huge distances to get better prices while at the same time we ship in just as much to feed our own citizens. This is a huge waste of fuel and is destroying our planet.

The more problems you can dump onto the environment the more money you make. Corporate farms horribly abuse livestock routinely because it makes them lots and lots of money. Keeping living creature locked away in dark dank barns is sooooo much easier than tending to their needs twice a day and rotating them in and out of pastures. If profit is your primary motive, than you will be a lousy farmer but make lots of money. Everyone should have access to unadulterated foods without chemicals, poisons and abuse of animals. It can be done but not if the primary motive is profit. So, I believe we need to consider farming like we do fire departments and police - A government function. Pay the farmers a living wage. Set up standards for them and distribute the food to the people who are in the area.

Ok, I also think food should be free. Maybe not luxury items like chocolate cake....but that's for another discussion.

[7962]

64. In that case nothing should ever be for sale.

Total Government control negates true capitalism

[malaise]

22. K & R n/t

[Brother Buzz]

25. Juxtaposition, ships of the desert

[Codeine]

28. That's one hell of a photograph. nt

[Paka]

30. Great picture.

I love camels.

[RKP5637]

32. Wow! n/t

[geardaddy]

51. Great photo and title.

It's unfortunate that the situation exists, but it's a great photo. I love me some Bactrian camels. I saw a few in China.

[pinto]

56. Great pic. One of those that tells a story in a single frame.

Thanks for the post.

[Eleanors38]

65. "...once-prosperous fishing industry..."

I saw some pics like this about 30 years ago. I think Spielberg got his ideas for Close Encounters from them.

[Scootaloo]

31. Do not become addicted to water. It will take hold of you and you will resent its absence

[Paulie]

45. Nice!

I prefer:

Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people."

[Codeine]

93. Well played, Imperator Scootaloo. nt

[Snobblevitch]

34. Yeah, what a good idea,

let's irrigate the desert to grow crops. Wait, tgat alreafy being done in Arizona and parts of California. Irrigating the desert to grow alfalfa to feed dairy cattle, some herds more than 4,000 head, is irresponsible.

The Colorado River cannot continue to be tapped in the manner it is now.

[magical thyme]

41. agreed. I'm sure Mexico would have preferred we hadn't diverted the Colorado River

which used to flow well into Mexico.

We turned off their water, but I guess they don't count.

Well now the Colorado River is in trouble, and our entire southwest. I suppose the Russophobes here will find a way to blame that on Russia as well. Can't possibly be due to our own near-sightedness ...

[Snobblevitch]

43. I don't know if anyone will blame Russia

for our water problems in the SW, but I recall a television cartoon in the 90s that used to annoy me. It was called Captain Planet. It had several kids from different countries. The Russian kid and th Chinese kid seemed to chastise the American about the bad ways he treated the environment. Yeah, right.

[zeemike]

52. Or the Rio Grande.

Which when it belonged to Mexico was used to irrigate crops all along it's length and is still used today...now Texas wants the water.
When there was plenty of snow in the mountains there was enough for all, but climate change has an effect too...the human effect on environment is real

[SCantiGOP]

61. re the Rio Grande

I remember years ago learning that some of the areas you can now walk across the Rio Grande between Mexico and the US used to host steamboat races..
Our (the world, not just the US) environmental policy reminds me of an old John Mayall song he wrote after a friend ODed on drugs: "Another Case of Accidental Suicide."

[Gloria]

97. Well, it's in the courts, but look for the last wild river in NM, in the Gila

to be diverted, with AZ getting a lot of water from NM...

The Rio Grande completely dries up down here near Las Cruces at times...It's
They have to ration out the water according to what the snowpack does. Intel has polluted the river up
near ABQ.
The wild area near Taos is about the best part of the not so grand Rio Grande....

Meanwhile, Otera Mesa, the largest fresh water aquifer we've got, is fighting the drillers like crazy....It spreads from NM into TX and yes, let's pollute that, too!

Assholes.

[Starry Messenger]

91. +1

[Agschmid]

35. Kick.

Wow, just wow.

[KentuckyWoman]

36. Beats me why we need more cotton

It's all the rage to turn old denim into insulation. If we can chew it up and turn it into fiber material fluffy enough to stop heat loss then why can't we respin it and make new cotton materials?

Edit to add the USA ships TONS of old Logo T Shirts in perfectly good shape in compressed bricks the size of shipping containers to 3rd world countries. Why can't we chew those up and make new cotton materials?

[brooklynite]

38. No, you don't get it...

The RUSSIAN EMPIRE started planning cotton in what is now Uzbekistan to address the potential loss of imports from the US.....due to the Civil War. (I was in Uzbekistan two years ago and visited the Aral Sea sites).

[KentuckyWoman]

39. Well can't the Russians just get cotton from all the stuff we send to Africa?

I know I'm being a bit obtuse here. Sorry. I am thinking in a general world view. The planet seems to have more than enough cotton floating around - seems to me if we are refusing to sell raw cotton to Russia they could recycle cotton. You know, like all the pots and pans we turned into other metal stuff in WW2.

[JonLP24]

42. I don't know the real reason for these canals specifically

I guess they wanted to grow cotton but overall canals were dug all over the place early post-war USSR for collective farms with heroic propaganda promoting the cause.

This documentary touches on that briefly

The area around Chernobyl -- the exclusion zone. The area around there throughout history was known for its famous Pripyat Marshes & dense wooded area that halted Genghis Kahn's army that all pretty much disappeared due to the collective farming & other campaigns but with the area left without humans for the most part (poachers, scrappers, and trespassers fairly common though) and the return of the wolves flooded the canals and the famous marshes returned.

I don't know the actual reasons here but I agree with your points and doubt the actual reasons were because they couldn't get cotton from US.

[Travis_0004]

57. So we should stop sending stuff to Africa.

Do you buy anything made of cotton?

Towels, clothes bed sheets, etc?

Im sure you might just respond saying you buy from a thrift store, which is nice, but somebody has to buy new stuff to eventually donate to the thrift store. I tend to wear clothes until they are not good enough to donate then cut them up for rags on dirty jobs, so i try to br frugal, but there will always be a need for cotton.

[EX500rider]

79. I don't know about you but I found Air Uzbekistan to be the scariest airline ever....

....their local flights on the Yak-40's, not the international flight's, those were bad for a different reason, the non-stop playing of Russian MTV on a 7 hour flight.

[brooklynite]

80. We flew Aeroflot in and out...

Internally, we flew on nothing as modern as a Yak-40...

[EX500rider]

81. YAk-40's first flew in 1966...

....it was the entirely bald tire on the main landing gear (cord showing across the entire tire) that made me nervous..

[BlueEye]

92. Yes, believe it or not the Ilyushin 114 is a lot newer than the Yak-40.

IL-114 was produced between 1990 and 2012, and has the same engines as most North American and European turboprops. The Yak-40 was built in the late '60s, early '70s for the most part.

The IL-114 in the photo has a very efficient six-blade propeller. People see the props and assume they're old, but many of them are way newer than the jets you're on!

[Brother Buzz]

40. You can't spin thread from busted short cotton fibers

[KentuckyWoman]

88. Not to be hardheaded but

I always figured if they can turn it into this then they could re-spin it. Just assumed.....

[Brother Buzz]

89. I suppose they could extrude it with some sort of resin to hold it all together

but soda pop bottles are tops at the moment, especially when they come with the resin is already included.

[7962]

66. Hemp would make better jeans than cotton. Less water too.

[DirtyHippyBastard]

77. F**kin Hippy...

[John1956PA]

44. The split-off northern portion still exists, and it has recovered a bit recently.

However, the southern portion is gone.

[valerief]

47. Now noted on maps as the Aral Saw. nt

[Leith]

59. That Was Rascally

but cute!

[Cleita]

58. We have known this was happening for decades yet none of us in the western world

did anything to get Russia some help to reverse what was happening. I guess there was no oil to save.

[valerief]

60. Rich folks gotta get richer and pigs gotta oink. nt

[Bluenorthwest]

62. Russia diverted the water that feeds the lake for agricultrual use.

Should 'the western world' have stopped them from doing that? How? On what grounds, it being theirs to do with as they wish?

[Cleita]

74. This is an international problem. No country in the world should be

allowed to destroy ecosystems, particularly the waterways, because they affect everyone. We have the same problem here in California with water being diverted from our rivers to water a desert known as the San Joaquin Vally for agriculture and to make the big Agro corporations richer and yet delivering food that is non-organic and killing our bees.

It seems all the resources and blood that have been shed to protect oil interests should have been put into preserving our ecosystems.

[yellowcanine]

98. Yes, anyone want to talk about the Colorado River and the Gulf of California?

http://www.livescience.com/45783-colorado-river-reaches-gulf.html

[7962]

67. "get Russia some help"? Gimme a break.

This has always been the way of Russia and the old Soviet Union. Remember how polluted the Eastern European countries were? the environment was never a factor in their planning. And I doubt it is very much better now in Russia than back in the old days

[Cleita]

75. So I guess you would rather we throw drones at them and

bomb the to smithereens as has become our habit? I think helping is much better. I don't think we are enlightened enough to do something constructive though and maybe it will be up to our European social democracies to lead the way.

[NuclearDem]

71. That was inevitable.

[StarzGuy]

68. This is another sad cometary on the human condition.

Man is the greatest threat to mother nature. Quick monetary gains (that are not sustainable) over the health of the environment is king.

[hunter]

70. Humans could fix that environment we broke.

But we probably won't.

There's no money in it.

[Xolodno]

76. If they can do it in the USA...why not the Aral Sea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buena_Vista_Lake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Delta

[bvar22]

82. Hey!!! That looks just like the Salton Sea,

an American engineering disaster .

[RKP5637]

84. Yep, another brilliant engineering effort, NOT!

[bvar22]

85. But at one time, that place ROCKED. I've seen some clips from the 20s & 30s.

It was one of the premier vacation destinations.

Now, it is a photographer's dream.

[RKP5637]

86. Here's an interesting link!

http://saltonseamuseum.org/salton_sea_history.html