In Northeastern Syria, Pollution and Conflict Prevent Thousands from Clean Water

Aug 20, 2020 | Elena Bruess
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It has been decades since the oil fields in northeastern Syria began poisoning land and water. Production took off in the late 1960s, and before the Syrian civil war, the area produced an estimated 110,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Now, nearly a decade after the war began, oil production may be closer to 60,000 barrels a day – if even that. The conflict also took its toll on the oil industry’s infrastructure, leaving behind dilapidated storage facilities, broken pipelines, and creaky refineries. It is a landscape of polluted air, soil, and water, an environmental disaster that falls hardest on residents of nearby villages.