Mosul Dam's Takeover by ISIS Raises Risk of Flooding
Constant Maintenance Needed to Avoid Catastrophic Failure of Dam's Structure
By Nour Malas
Aug. 11, 2014 7:32 p.m. ET
ERBIL, Iraq—Along with a creeping Islamist threat on Iraqi Kurdistan and the plight of thousands of Iraqis trapped on a mountainside, there was a scientific calculation behind the U.S. decision to intervene in Iraq: the potential for a 65-foot wave to engulf the northern city of Mosul, and even flood the central capital Baghdad.
The takeover of Mosul Dam, the country's largest, by Islamic militants on Aug. 7 was almost overshadowed by their blitz through several towns eastward, toward Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish-controlled region and home to thousands of U.S. citizens and government personnel.
Now, the insurgents' hold on the dam has intensified concerns over risks to the structure.
"Mosul Dam is essentially a ticking time bomb," said Azzam Alwash, an Iraqi hydraulic engineer. It has been problematic long before the surge in Iraq by Islamic State, an al Qaeda spinoff, because of a mix of bad geography and poorly executed reconstruction and maintenance, U.S. officials say.
Sprawled across the Tigris River in a valley north of Mosul, the dam controls the water and power supply in northern Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi officials say it could unleash deadly flooding if its foundation—which needs daily cement injections—further erodes.
It also puts a particularly lethal tool in the hands of an insurgent group that has strategically sought control of water resources in both Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials say. In Iraq, Islamic State already controls a dam in the country's west at Fallujah, and has moved on the nearby dam in Haditha.
"It's a high concern for us," said one senior U.S. official. "I don't know if it could fail in a day…but that's a key concern for us."
Some analysts said the Islamic State would likely use the Mosul Dam as a source of leverage in which it keeps the territory around the dam in exchange for continued water and power supply.
The core of the problem is the gypsum base on which the Mosul Dam was built. Gypsum absorbs and dissolves in water, creating cavelike holes that have required filling with a mix of cement and other substances—a process called grouting—daily for three decades. Without grouting, said Mr. Alwash, the base would erode and unleash flooding, probably within six months. It would take just hours to flood Mosul, about 30 miles downstream.
"It would be like a tsunami 20 meters high," he said. "You cannot run away fast enough."
A 2006 report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one of the agencies advising the Iraqi government on the structure, called it "the most dangerous dam in the world." The following year, a project assessment by the Office for the Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, a federal agency, reported inadequate construction, contract issues, and chaos in the delivery and maintenance of key equipment.
The U.S. invested more than $30 million upgrading, repairing and studying the dam between 2006 and 2010, said Stuart Bowen, the former U.S. inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Mr. Bowen's report on the U.S. effort to improve the dam said the project had been plagued by mismanagement.
"You'd have to call that project a failure at the time we visited it," Mr. Bowen said in an interview Sunday.
The Islamic State seizure of the dam remains a source of disagreement in Iraq, a reflection of how catastrophic the potential for failure or damage is. Officials confirm reports from the ground that the militants took the dam from the Kurdish Peshmerga forces guarding it Thursday, after fierce clashes in the surrounding area. Officials in Baghdad and Erbil initially denied the reports and then went quiet. A representative for the Kurdistan Regional Government declined to comment Sunday.
Atheel Nujaifi, governor of Nineveh province where Mosul sits, said the Islamic State completely controls the dam. Grouting stopped the day of the takeover, he said, because most employees, including all of the engineers, fled that Thursday.
Only Abdulkhalek Dabbagh, general manager, remains at the dam, said Mr. Nujaifi, adding that he speaks to him regularly for field updates. An employee at the dam's power plant disputed that account, saying that at least a handful of engineers remain. Mr. Nujaifi fled the province after the Islamic State took Mosul on June 10.
Mr. Dabbagh "stayed when the militants approached and he said: 'If something happens here there will be whole cities that are destroyed. So if you want to kill me, I will die right here at the dam,' " according to Mr. Nujaifi's recollection of a conversation he had with the dam's general manager.
Mr. Dabbagh wasn't reachable to comment, and Mr. Nujaifi said he would not put him through for direct comment for security reasons.
Protecting the dam could fall under President
Barack Obama's military authorization order, U.S. officials said, because flooding would endanger U.S. personnel in Baghdad. On Thursday night, after the authorization was announced, a senior administration official said "a breach of the dam could cause flooding that could compromise our embassy."
For now, the Pentagon's priority is to stop the insurgents from advancing on Erbil, create some space for Kurdish fighters to regroup and resupply, and find a way to rescue the Yazidi refugees on Mount Sinjar, officials said.
It is unlikely that the Kurdish Peshmerga, or U.S. airstrikes, would seek to reclaim the dam, given the potential for damage. And any damage would flood towns south of Mosul that are largely under Islamic State control, suggesting the militants may not be motivated to take that kind of action.
Mr. Nujaifi, the governor, said he doesn't believe the insurgents intend to bomb the dam. "However, what we fear is that they will play with the water level at the reservoir," he said, which would affect the supply of drinking water pumped from there. Already, militants have reduced the level enough to deprive Mosul of drinking water for two days, Mr. Nujaifi said.
—Ali A. Nabhan, Dion Nissenbaum and Felicia Schwartz contributed to this article.
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