Clean-up Effort
The Lebanon Ministry of Environment, with the help of many donor countries and non-profit organizations, has been working on the clean-up effort. This includes legal issues, such as compensation, which is being dealt with through the United Nations General Assembly. The government of Israel has still, to this day, not compensated the government of Lebanon for the damage that was done. The requests of compensation from the United Nations to the government of Israel went unanswered. The objective of the entire project is to manage the environmental catastrophe by attaining funds to complete the clean-up. The total amount that was raised by donor countries and organizations was $2,919,400. Cleanup work was funded by the country of Japan through the UNDP and by the country of Norway through the Higher Relief Commission in Lebanon. Expenditures between the years of 2006 and 2007 where estimated to be around $1,835,587. The clean-up effort included the Dalieh Fishermen's warf and three sites between Jadra and Ras al Saadiyat and three sites between Jieh and Beirut. Surveys of the coasts from Southern to Norther Lebanon took place in coordination with surveys of the underwater shorelines. A comprehensive shoreline survey of the catastrophic oil spill was put into action from the southern city of Tyre to the northern border of Lebanon, and it was undertaken between the months of November and December 2008, with funding from the International Development Agency of the Canadian government through UNDP in coordination with the Ministry of the Environment of Lebanon and under its technical supervision. The findings were finally, and with long anticipation, published by the United Nations in September 2009. Minor and pre-final clean-up activities at about 12 sites along the Lebanese coast, with a total length of approximately 7.5 kilometers, were quickly put into play and monitored by the Ministry of the Environment of the government of Lebanon.
A waste management project was also put in place in order to safely collect and transport the polluting material from the shorelines to temporary storage sites. The most recent United Nations report was published on August 7, 2009. This was the final report made by the United Nations General Assembly. The General Assembly decided to establish an Eastern Mediterranean Oil Spill Restoration Trust Fund, based on contributions from donor countries and organizations, to provide assistance and support to the States directly and adversely affected in their management of an environmentally sound sea and wildlife, from clean-up process to safe disposal of the oily waste that is on the shorelines, of this environmental disaster caused by the destruction of the oil storage tanks at the Jieh electric power plant in Lebanon.
Read more about this topic: Jiyeh Power Station Oil Spill
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