From Ecological Soviet-Era Ruin, a Sea Is Reborn

This May 31, 2009 photo shows a man walking on the Kokaral dike protecting the Aral Sea some 150...

This May 31, 2009 photo shows a man walking on the Kokaral dike protecting the Aral Sea some 150 kilometers from Aralsk, Kazakhstan. The dike was built in 2005 and has raised water levels, noticeably cooling the climate and lowering salinity rates far enough to make the sea habitable for freshwater fish. For decades, Soviet authorities and their successors diverted the rivers that fed the land locked Aral Sea to irrigate vast cotton fields. As a result, the sea, once the size of Ireland, shrank into a series of isolated stretches of water covering just 10 percent of its previous expanse. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

(AP)

Standing on the shore under the relentless Central Asian sun, Badarkhan Prikeyev drew on a cigarette and squinted into the distance as one fishing boat after another returned with the day's catch.

Until recently, this spot where the fish merchant was standing, in a man-made desert at the edge of nowhere, represented one of the world's worst environmental calamities.

Now fresh water was lapping at his boots, proclaiming an environmental miracle — the return of the Aral Sea.

The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth-largest body of fresh water, covering an area the size of Ireland. But then the nations around it became part of the Soviet Union. With their passion for planned economics and giant, nature-reversing projects, the communists diverted the rivers that fed the inland sea and used them to irrigate vast cotton fields. The result: The Aral shrank by 90 percent to a string of isolated stretches of water.

The catastrophe "is unprecedented in modern times," says Philip Micklin, a geography professor at Western Michigan University who has studied the Aral Sea for years.

And even now, nearly two decades after the Soviet Union broke up, the damage is far from reversed. Satellite images taken earlier this year show that one section of the sea has shrunk by 80 percent in the last three years alone. Uzbekistan, which controls three-quarters of the Aral Sea, has given up trying. The rescue has happened on Kazakhstan's portion, and it is striking.

Aralsk is a port that ended up 100 kilometers (60 miles) inland. But now, a dam built by the World Bank and Kazakh government is slowly resurrecting a small part of the sea, reviving the fishing industry and bringing hope to an area that some expected would simply dry up and blow away in the fierce, salty winds.

The returning water has crept to within 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) of Aralsk, also known as Aral, and the World Bank reckons it could reach the port in about six years.