Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 2, 1991 TAG: 9103020246
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
"Atmospheric pollution on this scale has never occurred before," said senior researcher Michael Renner of the Worldwatch Institute.
An initial survey Friday by Kuwaiti petroleum engineers indicated all 950 producing oil wells were set ablaze or otherwise damaged. An unspecified number of refineries also are burning. Some of the fires were ignited by allied bombing, but most are a result of Iraqi sabotage.
The volume of burning oil is unprecedented, with estimates of between 2.5 million and 3 million barrels per day - double Kuwait's production before the war - blazing out of control.
The fires, flaming up to 500 feet in the sky, are spreading black smoke over a distance of more than 1,000 miles, from Turkey in the north to the Strait of Hormuz in the south.
"It's astronomical. Nobody has ever seen anything like this before," said Diane Louison of Red Adair Co. in Houston. Adair, the legendary Texas oil-fire fighter, owns one of five U.S. companies under contract to the Kuwaiti government to extinguish the oil blazes.
The fires will pump as much as 765,000 tons of soot into the atmosphere each month, according to an estimate by Pacific Sierra Research, a California consulting firm.
The burning oil could produce about three million tons of sulfur and 750,000 tons of nitrogen in a year. The combination of those toxins with rainwater produces acid rain and poses a threat to livestock and croplands in the region.
The environmental group cautioned that the authorities should limit access to Kuwait to only personnel essential for reconstruction to reduce exposure to the tainted air. Resettlement of large numbers of Kuwaiti civilians should be delayed, said Christopher Flavin, vice president of research for the Worldwatch Institute.
"Weather anomalies could lead to tragedies similar to the deadly fogs that killed thousands of Londoners in 1952," Flavin said.
The United Nations Environment Program has dispatched a team of scientists to the region to assess the environmental damage by the oil fires and oil spill in the Persian Gulf. At least 3.3 million barrels of oil have spilled into the gulf, according to estimates, about 10 times the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off the Alaskan coast.
The 75-year-old Adair is awaiting word from the Kuwaiti government on when it will be safe to bring two fire-fighting teams into the war-ravaged nation. Troops must clear land mines and other hazardous debris in the vicinity of the fires before the crews are allowed to set up their extensive fire-fighting equipment.
Depending on the extent of damage to oil wells, it could take several months to as much as five years to put out the fires.
by CNB