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To: Ed Ajootian who wrote (25276)	8/26/2003 7:04:57 PM
From: John Carragher	Respond to of 206089

ot picked this off Iraq newspaper... results of damage caused by pipeline bomb. Date posted: 25.08.2003. Regions In the wake of pipeline explosion, trouble flows down-stream By Ahmad Mukhtar HIIT - It started as a nuisance, but within days, the stream of oil grew into an ecological disaster that tested the very infrastructure and leadership of communities struggling to recover from the war. On August 12, saboteurs made a gaping hole in the K3 oil pipeline in Haditha, sending thousands of barrels of oil spewing into nearby fields and eventually into Euphrates about 2 KM way. The slick moved downstream, touching almost every river community it met. But nowhere were the effects more dramatic than in Hiit, 200 km west of Baghdad and about 40 km away from the spill itself. Residents here woke up on August 14 to find oil mixed in with their tap water, spattered along their vegetable fields, and contaminating irrigation canals. For decades Hiit has been cursed with a reputation as pro-Saddam territory, while the town itself has been neglected from public works and infrastructure projects because its residents were also famous for being in the opposition. Residents were excluded from the high level positions in the previous regime, and now they claim they are being forgotten by the new authorities. "A day after the explosion of Haditha pipeline we found the Euphrates passing our town contaminated with crude oil," " explains Saddam Abdulhamid. "Boats were covered in black grease and life stopped for two days." Cafés and restaurants closed for a week; residents feared of poisoning and epidemic diseases, and most everything remained unwashed for several days as families eschewed city tap water. Crops became brown and black. And for several days, business slowed down almost to a halt. Imams at mosques mobilized residents to store water and town folk were encouraged to ration it. Town leaders scrambled to get clean water supplies as some humanitarian groups delivered clean water supplies, but barely enough to serve the people of the town. The city became flush with soft drinks while livestock on many farms died due to dehydration. "We had really bad luck this year," says Hamid Farhan, a farmer from Hiit. "Vegetables are very sensitive to ecological factors, and will die." Fortunately for farmers like Farhan, the incident happened towards the end of the season for eggplant, tomatoes and other staples grown here. "All the officials are responsible for what happened to us", Farhan adds " the Americans too have to protect the oil pipeline if they want to its product so badly. They need to have patrols covering the sensitive parts of the pipeline because they are occupation authorities and they have responsibility for it." Embarrassed town officials have taken to finger pointing, blaming authorities upriver for at least part of the problem. Thabit Afat Abdul Rahman, an official at the Hiit's directorate of water, accused the authorities in Haditha of not giving early warning of the incident to Hiit's authorities in order to take appropriate measures. "I had no way of solving the problem except to stop the flow of drinking water into the town's system of pipes to contamination with oil". The best solution for the problem, he insists, was to stop the flow of water into the Euphrates dam by opening the Warwar branch and increasing the water level into Haditha dam. But critics say that would have simply sent the problem to Falluja, creating and entirely different problem for other towns along the Euphrates. Irrigation officials have also blamed part of the problem on the shortage of equipment. "The officials at Haditha opened the dam for a short time" said Samir Umar Hindi, "the tides ebb and flow caused oil to spread along both banks of the river." Officials neither offered Hiit's managers suitable equipment to deal with the oil slick nor did they offer a suitable solution. But long running problems in the irrigation system didn't help either. Hiit's irrigation has long depended on electric pumps, which have remained unreliable in the country's electricity crisis. But even as the oil slick dissipated, the oil seeped into the layers of soil. "The seepage risks killing the roots of the plant," said Mohamed Rabii, an agriculture officials in Hiit. Were it to happen at any other time in the season, it would have meant near collapse of the economy. Rabii insists the solution for the problem lay in the hands of the fire brigade, who were charged with isolating oil slicks and clearing them away. And NGOs who typically declare a state of emergency in such cases, seemed to take little notice of the fundamental problem in Hiit, he contends. And the town's mainly dirt roads only made matters worse, limiting access to cars, support vehicles and fire trucks that charged with the job. Town leaders have breathed a sigh of relief as the dour medical effects of the slick appear to have waned. Clear across town, Dr. Nizar Al-Kubaisi, director of Hiit's main hospital, said so far the oil pollution has not seemed to cause any major epidemics or poison cases as residents turned to dirty water supplies. Yet he criticizes some of the activities of the NGOs, accusing them of a certain degree of hypocrisy. Medicins Sans Frontiers and the Iraqi United Medical Commission visited the hospital just days after the event, but doctors here argue their help fell short. "They provided us with insufficient and useless medicines," Al-Kubaisi contends. "We have appealed to them help us with the much needed equipment for surgical operations, like for anesthesia and sonograms, but they haven't been able to provide that. How could they even help in this emergency?" Al-Kubaisi said he has already informed the CPA of the hospital's needs and perquisites. He contends the CPA expressed concern over the matter but offered little in the way of concrete solutions. Representatives of the CPA were not available for comment.

To: Ed Ajootian who wrote (25276)	8/27/2003 1:43:44 PM
From: energyplay	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 206089

Ed and the board - consider metal mining stocks. Similar to oil and gas in many ways - product comes out of the ground, inflation is a plus, sector was depressed for many years. Looks like we may have a pause in energy prices(until Venezuela blows up ?), and miners can be a nice place to be. Leading example of a big cap - Phelps Dodge (NYSE: PD), mostly Copper. Chart - siliconinvestor.com Other names Big Caps BHP, RTP, N, NRD, FCX, FL.to Small Caps - SWC, WHT