LETTER FROM BEIRUT
Few dam projects in Lebanon escape controversy. Located on the Jaouz River in the Batroun District in the north of the country, the Mseilha Dam is no exception. While $64 million (around €58 million) has already been sunk into the construction of this hydraulic structure, which began in 2014, the first investigating judge of North Lebanon, Samaranda Nassar, ordered its sealing in August 2024.
During her visit to the site, the Lebanese magistrate found the dam disused, filled with abandoned construction equipment and with only a guard and his chicken farm as occupants. The financial prosecutor’s office had referred the case to Judge Nassar to investigate suspicions of embezzlement of public funds. Designed to hold up to 6 million cubic meters of water and supply the villages in the region, the dam has been experiencing watertightness problems since it was filled in late 2019.
An expert assessment is to be conducted on the construction, while several contractors who worked on the site are being prosecuted. The figure of $10 million is put forward as being enough to carry out the required waterproofing work. This would be an additional waste, say environmental activists, according to whom the construction of a dam at this location defies common sense.
“Any student of hydrology could tell you that the Lebanese mountain is karstic, therefore permeable and unsuitable for building dams. This is the case in Mseilha. Lebanon is the water tower of the Middle East, because the soil facilitates the infiltration of rainwater and snowmelt. In addition, the site is located 45 meters above sea level, which is very low and promotes the deposition of sediments. And the Batroun fault is in the floor of the reservoir, which creates a seismic risk.”lists Paul Abi Rached, from the NGO Terre Liban.
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“It’s a disaster”
As early as 2014, experts and activists mobilized against the construction of this structure had alerted the Ministry of the Environment that no impact study had been carried out before the start of the work, as required by Lebanese law. “The Ministry of Environment issued a decision prohibiting construction and excavation, but the Ministry of Energy did not respond and the disaster began”testifies, with emotion, Fadi Merheb, a resident of Hamat, in the region of the dam, engaged against the project.
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