Iraqi official denies claims that salinity in Shatt al-Arab Waterway is down

BASRA / IraqiNews.com: The Mayor of Southern Iraq’s Faw township, Walid al-Sharify, has denied on Sunday a statement by the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources, that the percentage of salinity in Shatt al-Arab Waterway had decreased.   “The percentage of salinity in the waters of Shatt Al-Arab Waterway is still as it was before and no change has taken place; hence I call on related parties to measure the percentage of the Waterway’s salinity in Faw township, that had reached about 10,000 degrees and would reach about 30,000 degrees, as we head further down to the Gulf,” Sharify told IraqiNews.com news agency.   “The statement that was announced by the Ministry of Water Resources about the decrease in the percentage of salinity in the Waterway, after the rising of its water level for about 70 cubic meters per second, is incorrect and the level of salinity in the Waterway had reached its highest levels,” Sharify said.   Faw’s Mayor, in a previous statement with IraqiNews.com had demanded the government to consider his Faw township as a “disaster area,” due to its water shortage and the salinity of its waters, thing that forced animal breeders and farmers to desert their home town.”   Noteworthy is that the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources had announced few days ago the decrease of salinity in Shatt al-Arab Waterway, due to the increase of the levels of water entering Iraq from Turkey, where Iraq’s Tigris and Euphrates Rivers stem from its territories.   SKH (RT)