Iraq drought continues, as sandstorms worsen

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Alewi al-Shimmari, a father of six in Diwaniyah, south of Baghdad, used to grow rice on his entire 100-acre farm, but the drought has left all but 12 acres useless for farming.

"More than 50 percent of families working as farmers left their villages and went to the city," al-Shimmari said. "Lands that once were green farms are now turned to desert."

U.S. State Department reconstruction teams in Anbar, an arid province in western Iraq, are helping Iraqis to continue drawing water from depleted lakes and ensure that water treatment plants can adequately treat the supply of drinking water.

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They say some lakes in Anbar Province are 9 to 12 yards lower this year compared with last year. The water is so low that water intake pipes are exposed and cannot suck the water up into treatment plants.

What water can be drawn is heavy with sediment. That coupled with increased salinity, sewage waste dumped into the Euphrates and agricultural runoff is making it increasingly difficult for water treatment plants to cleanse the supply of drinking water.

Snakes add to plight
As if ongoing bombings and drought weren't enough, Hassan al-Asadi, a member of the Dhi Qar provincial council in southern Iraq, said that a few months ago, water snakes that had lost their natural habitat along the rivers started to show up around houses near al-Chibaiysh marshland.

"The snakes were looking for food and dozens of people were bitten," he said, adding that for a time, Iraqi soldiers and policemen were shooting about 70 wayward snakes a day.