Conflict Incident Report

A standoff between an activist and a bulldozer opening the road to a dump ended in insults and a complaint filed with Nabatieh police Friday. Residents of Nabatieh Fawqa had woken up Friday to a bulldozer reopening a road that some residents had closed weeks ago because of its proximity to a controversial dump.

The road leads to private properties, some of which local residents use for agriculture. Activists in the area had demanded the closure of the site in view of the environmental damage and health problems they said it had caused by polluting nearby groundwater used by the town.

Activists protested the bulldozer’s work Friday. One local attempted to stand in front of the bulldozer, which led to an exchange of insults. The driver of the bulldozer filed a complaint against the activist to the Nabatieh police station.

Yasser Ghandour, the mayor of Nabatieh Fawqa, said the municipality had reopened the road after local residents called for access to their private properties.

He pointed out that the landfill in the area, which has existed for 15 years, contains old waste and is not currently receiving trash. Ghandour said this is proved by the fact that Nabatieh Fawqa produces 15 tons of waste per week. If this amount of waste were dumped in the landfill, its level would have risen tens of meters, which he says is not the case.

“There is no truth to rumors spread by some that this landfill is open to all waste from the surrounding areas,” the mayor said. But Hussein Ghandour, a local resident who helped close off the road, previously said he would not back down from shutting down “this cancerous junkyard.” He commented that the landfill has caused disease and sickness for local families. Hussein Ghandour also said he would file a complaint to the local environmental prosecutor, Judge Abbas Geha, next Monday, as well as informing the caretaker environment minister.