Basmaya’s sky is polluted… How do thousands of citizens live?

Abu Muhammad (45 years old), who lives in the Basmaya city, southeast of Baghdad, complains about the gas emissions emitted by the factories of the neighboring area of ​​​​Abu Thila, which  cover the sky of the city and its surroundings.

Abu Muhammad, who works as a freelancer, suffers from shortness of breath, and he forced to wear a mask on his face whenever he leaves his house, especially in the evening hours. He says that he “constantly takes a bronchodilator because of the smell of sulfur and the fumes of the asphalt and oils factories near the city.”

He demand the government to intervene to solve the issue: “At least, they reassure us that the smoke covering us does not contain toxic materials, and will not cause us or our children serious diseases in the short or long term.”

The effects of smoke and gases emitted by the Abu Thila factories, which experts and officials say do not take into account environmental requirements, also terrify Om Jude, whose house is located a short distance from the factories. She has a young son who suffers from asthma, and because of his illness she is forced to put him in closed room, while she covers his face with a mask when she takes him out of the house.

The Basmaya city includes eight vertical residential neighborhoods, lives in it between 80 and 100 thousand people. It is considered one of the modern residential projects established only 10 kilometers from the borders of Baghdad city. However, the city located next to the Nahrawan and Abu Thila areas, which include small and medium-sized industrial factories and facilities.

The sky of Basmaya is constantly covered by smoke clouds coming out of these factories, due to the activity of brick, Tar, asphalt, flancote, oils and grease purification and recycling factories, etc.

These factories are mostly release big quantities of smoke and waste that cause significant environmental damage.

Environmental specialists, researchers, and residents of the complex accuse some factories of operating without proper approvals, in light of the failure of authorities to follow up and hold them accountable. They doubt that they follow any of the environmental standards to reduce the risks of emissions resulting from their work.

This is what this investigation is trying to uncover, supported by documents and results of field detection devices measuring air quality and the bodies accompanying smoke from industrial activities near the Basmaya Residential Complex.

Environmental Violations

In the past two years, many residents of Bismayah have complaints to the Ministry of Environment regarding factory emissions and unpleasant smells. According to the sources, and according to documents obtained by the investigator, the ministry conducted field surveys that revealed the presence of “environmental pollution” in the complex and other areas adjacent to it.

Investigations by the Ministry’s Environmental Impact Activities Monitoring Program linked the high levels of pollution to “the presence of asphalt factories in the Abu Thila area, which operate at night, i.e. outside the official working hours of government departments, which causes an increase in gaseous emissions with the spread of sulfur smells, which poses a danger to people’s health in the area.”

The documents are official correspondence issued by the Environmental Protection and Improvement Department in the Central Region, addressed to the office of the Minister of Environment on October 17, 2023, which included the department’s procedures regarding complaints received from Basmaya residents.

These correspondences show that technical teams conducted field surveys to determine the causes of pollution in the area. They found conclusive evidence of the presence of pollution and made recommendations to impose penalties on factories that violate environmental conditions and laws.

On October 12, 2023, the Baghdad Environment Team issued a warning to the Pearl of Baghdad Oil Refining factory, the Al-Bahar Oil Refining and Purification factory, and the Al-Rawasi factory for the Production of Oxidized Asphalt, due to the violations of these factories, including “non-compliance with environmental requirements by using oil waste in the production process, as well as high readings of volatile organic compounds (VOC) concentrations above the national limit.”

The documents also showed violations of the Al-Jisr Transfer Station, which was considered an irregular station due to its failure to obtain environmental approval and the lack of environmental conditions required for transfer stations.

On October 26, 2023, the Ministry of Environment request from the Ministry of Interior and National Security to cessation the activities of factories that do not have environmental approvals “due to the pollution they cause that harms residents in that area.”

The documents confirm that the security authorities were provided with the names and locations of the factories that violate environmental conditions.

On December 12, 2023, a team from the Baghdad Environment Directorate, the Environmental Police and the National Security/Basmaya Office, along with a force from the Federal Police, conducted a second site inspection of the asphalt plant sites in the Abu Thila area, which is 4 km away from the Basmaya residential city.

During its visit to the (Al Rawasi) plant for the production of oxidized asphalt, the team conducted an examination of the concentrations of non-volatile organic substances (VOC) in two stages. The first, inside the plant during the production period, was within the national limit.

While during the second inspection stage outside the plant near the asphalt tank, the team noticed the emission of odors and vapors from the tank during the product cooling period, and the reading was (0.9-1.2-1.4-0.7 PPM), which is higher than the national limit.

The team also revealed that the laboratories (Al Bahar and Lulu) use oil waste in the process of heating the towers, which causes emissions during operation. In addition, the measurements of the concentrations of non-volatile organic materials (VOC) are (0.2-0.4-0.3-0.4), which is higher than the national limit. The team also revealed that there is a sedimentation hole inside the two laboratories with a width of 2 m and a length of 1 m.

Documents also show that there is a 20 asphalt production factories in the Abu Thila area of ​​Al-Madain district, 16 of which operate during the night and until the early morning hours. They all violate environmental conditions and contribute to the high levels of air pollution in the city of Basmaya and the surrounding areas.

The Department of Environmental Protection and Improvement and the Baghdad Environment Directorate – (for reasons not announced) – were unable to stop any of these plants, despite issuing warnings and notices to close a number of them.

Serious air pollution

The Director of contaminated sites and chemicals management department at the Ministry of Environment, Louay Sadiq Al-Mukhtar, confirms that “the air pollution rate in Iraq has exceeded the rate set by the World Health Organization by six times,” indicating that “the country has exceeded 70 parts per million in the rate of pollutants according to the measuring stations located in Baghdad, while the World Health Organization’s limit is 10 parts per million.”

He says that “the air quality ranges between the yellow color that affects human health, especially those suffering from respiratory problems, and the unhealthy orange color, which if the air quality index reaches it, people with health issues should stay in their homes and close the windows.”

Al-Mukhtar says that the problem lies in the leakage of sulfur gases that can “carry a type of cyclic substances such as benzenes and phenols, and these substances leave serious health effects and disrupt the work of some organs of the human body, and cause cancer as a result of continuous and long-term exposure to them.”

Ali Jaber, Director of the Air and Pollution Monitoring Department at the Urban Environment Directorate of the Ministry of Environment, points to other risks that affect air quality, which are: “The open burning of waste, as there is no integrated waste management system in Iraq that undertakes to collect, recycle and convert it into Green energy.”

He says that this is happening near the Basmaya city, where the nearby Nahrawan landfill is located, in addition to the presence of factories.

Recent measurements identified “the presence of particulate pollution that exceeds national limits, as well as pollution with hydrocarbons, which are carcinogenic and have a cumulative effect. Nitrogen oxide and sulfur oxide pollution have also been detected in some areas, especially those affected by industrial activities.”

The government official offers a few solutions to reduce air pollution in Basmaya and other areas of the capital, including “installing appropriate means of controlling emissions and moving polluting activities away from residential areas.”

Al-Jaber acknowledges that his ministry does not have devices to measure air pollution rates in the Basmaya area, but he spoke about coordination “to install a station to monitor air quality in the complex, without specifying a date for this to be completed.

He added: “In general, the atmosphere of Baghdad suffers from air pollution at rates exceeding the national limit, and its impact worsens during the summer with the increase in emissions from industrial activities and the operation of generators.”

Legal Violations

According to legal expert Faleh Khader Ghazi, the Iraqi Environmental Protection and Improvement Law No. 27 of 2009 stipulated special standards for industrial activities, including obligating the project owner before implementing it to submit a report that includes an assessment of the positive and negative impacts of the project on the environment, and an assessment of the cost of pollution relative to production.

It also obligates project owners to prevent the emission of smoke, gases, vapors or particles resulting from production processes or burning fuel into the air, and to carry out the necessary treatments that include their compliance with environmental laws. The law also granted the minister or his authorized representative the authority to “warn any facility, factory, or any entity or source polluting the environment to remove the influencing factor within 10 days from the date of notification of the warning.”

In case non-compliance, the law granted “the authority to stop or temporarily close for a period not exceeding 30 days, extendable until the violation is removed, and to impose a fine of not less than one million dinars and not more than 10 million dinars, repeated monthly until the violation is removed.”

Ghazi believes that the Ministry of Environment is satisfied with only fines, and that it should close down the violating factories and impose severe penalties on them with repeated violations and refer them to the courts.

He also points out the possibility of imprisoning violators, according to Article 34/First of the Environmental Protection and Improvement Law, as if the violator does not comply with removing the environmental damage, “he shall be punished with imprisonment for a period of not less than three months, and the penalty shall be doubled each time the violation is repeated.”

The National Emissions Limits Instructions for Activities and Businesses No. (3) Of 2012 for the implementation and application of the Environmental Protection and Improvement Law stipulated that “all industrial activities, including asphalt factories, smelting furnaces, bricks and oils, shall not exceed the maximum permissible limits for emissions and their leakage into the surrounding air.”

He stops at Article 3 of the instructions, which stipulates that “all sources of emissions, both fixed and mobile, shall be subject to monitoring and measurement work by the competent authorities in coordination with the Ministry of Environment.”

He says that what actually happens is that dozens of factories that violate environmental conditions do not comply with the instructions, including asphalt, oil and brick factories surrounding the city of Basmaya, while the relevant authorities do not apply the penalties or impose them at their minimum.

A New City Amidst Pollutants

The representative of the Nahrawan Brick Factory Complex, Talib Al-Saeedi, acknowledges the existence of emissions resulting from the “burning process of brick cores,” indicating that addressing the emissions requires government support.

In light of this reality, he expresses his surprise at the granting of environmental approvals by government agencies to build the city of (Ali Al-Wardi), which is only 7 km away from the Nahrawan Brick Complex!

Al-Saeedi attributes the reasons for the continued emissions of brick factories to “their owners’ financial inability to replace the brick burning ovens,” calling for government support “to reduce burning operations and air pollution by converting factories from primitive to industrial ones.”

He points out that the Ministry of Environment imposes periodic financial fines on brick factory owners, but “it does not hold accountable the outdated ovens that were established outside the industrial zone and that contribute to air pollution by 40%.”

Al-Saeedi emphasized the modernization of the machines used in the brick industry and making them environmentally friendly, but the polluting emissions remain high due to the use of black oil in the burning process.

The Minister of Industry, Khaled Al-Battal, had promised to close the 90 factories that exceeded the limits, but nothing happened on the ground.

There are 270 factories licensed to produce bricks in Al- Nahrawan, 70 of which were established in 2015, and 90 ovens that were opened without proper approvals.

The Ministry of Environment had issued orders to close 19 asphalt factories in Basmaya, while issuing warnings to an others for violating the regulations.

The Director General of the Department of Environmental Protection and Improvement in the Central Region, Raghad Asad Al-Obaidi, said that “a number of these factories violate the closure orders and operate at night in crooked ways, which forced the ministry to resort to security forces to limit these violations that cause smoke to rise and the emission of sulfur smells, which have an impact on the health of citizens.”

The factories that were issued with closure orders included: Abd and Brothers Asphalt Factory, pearl Baghdad for Asphalt Production, Jarf Al-Naddaf Asphalt Factory, Alaa Khalifa Ali Asphalt Factory, Abaq Al-Rayahin, Mohammed Saman and Hassan Rashid Asphalt Factory, Jarf Al-Naddaf/Salal Hussein Abdullah, Ataa Al-Ardh, Taj Al-Marwa, Al-Yaqout, Alaa Asphalt Factory, Abu Ahmed Asphalt Factory, Fares Asphalt Factory, Alaa Adnan Asphalt Factory, Issam Asphalt Factory, Jamil Thuwaini Asphalt Factory, Ataa Al-Ardh 2 Asphalt Factory, Ayad Asphalt Factory, Ramal Al-Shatea Asphalt Factory, Ali Asphalt Factory. The investigator contacted with the owner of these factories but he did not receive any answers from them, and their owners preferred not to comment. The same thing happened with the owners of many asphalt factories in Abu Thila. Employees and workers in some of these facilities blamed the “the party that granted the residential investment license in the area known to be industrial.” One of the young workers, who stressed that his name should not be mentioned, said that the whole matter is related to mismanagement, explaining that the factories were established and operate under approvals from official parties, and that they are originally located outside Baghdad and within the environmentally specified distance, but what happened later was that land was granted for residential complexes in neighboring areas.

“I have been working here for more than ten years, before Basmaya was built, so the residents should complain about the party that agreed to build their apartments near factories known for their emissions,” says another asphalt plant worker. “Our factory and others for tar, oil, iron and brick smelting all emit polluting smoke and the environment knows this very well.”

Slow Death

A medical source from the Nahrawan Hospital near the Basmaya Complex describes living near the active factories in the area as “exposure to slow death.” He says: “The number of cancer cases recorded here annually is 80-100, and we notice an increase in the number of cases among children, in addition to the recording of many cases of strokes.”

The source, who asked not to be named, confirms the impossibility of scientifically proving that factory pollutants are the cause. However, he adds: “We also cannot rule out that emissions from factories are a direct cause.”

The source reveals that Nahrawan Hospital receives: “between 10-15 cases of suffocation daily, and the number may reach 70 cases of suffocation in one day, if all the nearby factories operate at the same time, which happens sometimes, and these numbers increase significantly during the summer.”

These cases of suffocation occur as a result of the spread of sulfur dioxide gas, which causes respiratory diseases such as asthma, respiratory infections, lung cancers, and also kidney diseases, the source said, explaining that the rate of strokes reaches 10% compared to respiratory diseases.

Environmental Warnings

The Green Iraq Observatory, a civil society organization, warned that if pollution remains untreated, it will lead to air pollution in the capital itself.

The observatory stated in December 2023: “We received numerous complaints from residents of the Basmaya complex about environmental pollution in their areas due to brick and asphalt factories. We recorded this pollution resulting from smoke from factories located in Village 10 and in Jurf al-Naddaf in the Madain District (southeast of Baghdad).”

The observatory revealed that the most prominent polluting materials are “sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides,” indicating that “these materials increased Baghdad’s air pollution according to the global quality index, making it rank 124 among the countries of the world.”

The air quality index is based on measuring the microscopic solid or liquid particles suspended in the air. The sources of the particles can be natural or anthropogenic as a result of daily activities, as well as calculating the presence of other components in the air such as ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and carbon monoxide (CO).

Sulfur dioxide, a gas produced by burning sulfur, is a highly toxic gas. When inhaled at low concentrations, it causes severe irritation of the nose and throat and damages the airways. At high concentrations, it becomes life-threatening due to the massive accumulation of fluid in the lungs (pulmonary edema).

Asphalt factories in Basmaya

In addition to the Nahrawan and Abu Thila factories, the emissions of power stations, the Dora refinery in Baghdad, and other industrial facilities that have become part of the capital’s basic design after the population expansion, increase the risks to public health, as they are now close to their homes, work sites, shopping, and daily lives.

Field trips

Environmental engineering expert from the University of Baghdad, Dr. Hussein Jabbar, accompanied the investigator on a field trip to determine the levels of pollution in the Nahrawan area near the Bismayah complex, which includes 370 brick factories.

The expert confirms that the results of measuring air quality recorded an increase in the number of suspended objects in the air, exceeding environmental limits, as volatile organic materials in the center of the brick factories reached about 1100 micrograms per cubic meter.

He reveals that Bismayah and the surrounding areas are witnessing an increase in “the levels of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides that exceed the natural limits by dozens of times,” and indicates that these pollutants, which are primarily hydrocarbons, have negative effects on human life in the short term, and turn into deadly cancers in the long term.

Dr. Hussein adds: “We at the University of Baghdad have identified multiple points for the Nahrawan brick factories to measure on maps in a scientific manner, to determine the hours of work and burning, and we used modern devices to measure air quality.”

He explained that “the results of field detection devices measuring air quality and smoke-related objects showed shocking numbers compared to the percentages determined locally and globally, and compared to areas far from the Nahrawan brick factory flares, which proves the information we had previously obtained.”

Evasion of Responsibility

According to the Environmental Protection and Improvement Law No. 27 of 2009, each factory must be surrounded by a green belt of evergreen trees, and based on the availability of this belt, it is granted environmental approval, according to the Director General of the Environmental Protection and Improvement Department in the Central Region, Raghad Asad Al-Obaidi.

The Ministry of Environment is the body responsible for monitoring environmental violations of industrial facilities, including the presence of a green belt, and imposes “a penalty of closure on every factory that does not obtain environmental approval,” says Al-Obaidi.

She, in turn, confirms that asphalt factories and melting balls are polluting facilities and have not achieved the environmental requirement of controlling emissions and gases that pollute the air. She says that “factories should be outside the municipality’s borders, but population sprawl has occurred in the basic designs of cities and the proximity of housing to industrial areas, causing many environmental and health problems.”

Al-Obaidi reveals that black fuel is used in about 370 factories in Nahrawan, which has led to an increase in pollution rates. “When this material is burned, carbon and sulfur oxide gases are emitted, polluting the air of Nahrawan and the city of Basmaya.” To address the problem, she believes that the Industrial Development Directorate of the Ministry of Industry and Minerals, as the body responsible for brick and asphalt factories, must provide factory owners with automatic combustion systems to prevent air polluting emissions.

She pointed out that the systems currently used in these factories “are not automatic combustion systems, but rather fire turbines that do not have filters for purification and retention of gases and particles from being emitted into the air.” For its part, the Ministry of Industry denies granting licenses to projects “outside of environmental approvals,” and the spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry, Dhuha Al-Jubouri, says that “the first step includes granting the project a license under establishment, and after the project is completed, it is not granted a full establishment license until all necessary approvals are obtained, whether from the Ministries of Environment and Oil or other relevant authorities.” Al-Jubouri talks about the existence of “cooperation between the Ministries of Industry and Environment through field monitoring, and if the environment detects a violation related to not installing pollutant filters, all legal measures are taken against the violating project.”

But the reality is different, as the factories near the Basmaya complex continue to violate these instructions, in addition to violating the Environmental Protection and Improvement Law No. 27 of 2009, despite the financial fines imposed on them, as confirmed by the Director of the Environmental Police in Baghdad, Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Abdul Hassan.

He said: “Every source of environmental pollution, whether asphalt factories near Basmaya or others, is supposed to be subject to the law,” accusing unnamed partisan and political parties of “exerting pressures that prevent the application of the law against all violators among the factory owners,” as he put it.

The Director of the Baghdad Environment, Sadiq Al-Moussawi, like other officials, confirms that “the results of the laboratory tests they conducted show higher concentrations of air pollutants (VOC) from volatile organic compounds than the national limit in the Basmaya complex.”

According to Al-Moussawi, the Capital Environment Department issued closure orders for some air-polluting activities, such as a number of asphalt factories near Basmaya, estimated at 22 factories, “melting pots, and irregular conversion stations,” and imposed fines on a number of “brick factories and regular conversion stations” for not complying with environmental requirements. He says that 2023 witnessed the closure of 256 factories in violation of environmental safety conditions in Baghdad, “but we face a problem represented by the operation of some of these factories outside official working hours, which makes it difficult for us to follow up on them.”

former municipal council member in Al-Jisr district, Abdul Razzaq Hassoun Jiyad Al-Shammari, who lives in the Basmaya complex, accuses some factory owners of building relationships with influential government entities and others of paying bribes, which hinders their accountability.

He adds: “No one can lift this violation despite our appeals, and the force holding the area in power cannot implement the closure decisions due to their influence. We will leave our areas and head to areas with an environment free of these disasters if the Prime Minister does not respond to our voices.”

In light of the despair of many Basmaya residents that the relevant authorities will take measures to save them from the sources of pollution that threaten their health, some of them have moved to other areas, and others are thinking of taking the same step.

Ahmed Majid (65 years old), the owner of a grocery store in Baghdad, is one of them. He sold his apartment a few months ago and moved to the north of the Baghdad. He says, “I did this for the safety of my family. The danger of pollutants threatened us all. Now we can be outside the house without fear of smoke.”

He believes that the problem is mainly related to the corruption of the party that “granted the right to build residential complexes near the Nahrawan area, which has a sanitary landfill and factories, and Abu Thila, where there are asphalt and oil factories and the like.” He explains his point of view, which matches the point of view of some factory owners: “All official parties knew that factories emit emissions and pollute the environment, so why did they grant them investment licenses to build residential complexes, and why can’t they now protect people from factory smoke?”

 He pauses for a moment, then answers with a smile: “its corruption, the cause of most of our problems that have absolutely no solutions.”