Fenianos: Additional Auditory Bird Repellents Installed on RHIA Tarmac
Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos announced on Thursday that the Civil Aviation Directorate began installing additional auditory bird repellents to keep the birds away from the Rafik Hariri International Airport's tarmac.
“The Directorate began early on Thursday the installment of auditory bird repellents on the airport's tarmac. The process is under implementation at a rapid pace,” assured Fenianos.
The measures were taken after the issue of birds threatening flight safety at the Beirut airport, surfaced to the spotlight on Wednesday, when MP Walid Jumblat tweeted about the matter.
“We were about to witness a disaster yesterday,” Jumblat had tweeted, urging the pushing of the Costa Brava garbage landfill, which lies close the terminal, away from the airport.
On Wednesday, and after a meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Fenianos said that flights in and out of Beirut airport are at risk because of the large number of birds flying over a nearby garbage dump.
He said that the presence of the Costa Brava dump has contributed to the increasing number of birds.
Although Mount Lebanon Urgent Matters Judge Hassan Hamdan has ordered on Wednesday a "temporary closure of the landfill,” LBCI TV reported from the dump site that normal activity was witnessed Thursday.
The Costa Brava dump was created in March 2016, as one of three "temporary" dumps intended to provide an interim solution to the closure of the main landfill receiving waste from Beirut.
Under a government plan intended to end the crisis caused by the landfill's closure, the dumps were eventually intended to have waste processing facilities, but that has not happened.
As a result, garbage has piled up in Costa Brava, on the coastline close to the runways at Beirut's international airport, reaching nine meters in some places and wafting foul odors nearby.
Environmentalists have for months warned that the dump is attracting rodents and increasing numbers of birds, posing potential risk for aviation.
In August, the Lebanese pilots' union warned of the possibility of the birds being sucked into airplane engines.
Local media reported that on Tuesday a plane belonging to national carrier Middle East Airlines encountered a large flock of birds as it landed on the airport's west runway, prompting concern.
A permanent solution for the waste produced by Beirut and its surroundings has yet to be found, months after the Naameh landfill was shuttered and garbage began piling up on the capital's streets.
The issue is one of many outstanding challenges that remain to be resolved by Lebanon's new government, formed on December 18 after some two years of political paralysis.
Source: Naharnet
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