The visible pollution on Thursday afternoon, June 26, 2025, on one of the beaches in Jiyeh, along the Chouf coastline. (Credit: Civil Defense.)
BEIRUT — An oil spill was observed Thursday afternoon off the coast of Jiyeh, on the Chouf coast, south of Beirut. In this region known for its beaches, among the most beautiful and cleanest in the country, the hydrocarbon leak was clearly visible in the water and on the sand.
It was quickly contained Friday morning by the Civil Defense in the water, confirmed to L'Orient Today by a source withinthe Civile Defense and the new municipal council president of Jiyeh, Wissam Azzi.
In a statement, the Civil Defense specified that it was "notified Thursday, around 3 p.m., of the oil spill off Jiyeh." "The rapid intervention of our sea rescue team, in coordination with the Damour center, estimated the affected area in the sea to be about 300 square meters," the statement continues, mentioning that the expansion of the spill was quickly limited thanks to the necessary equipment.
"At sea, we managed to prevent the expansion of the slick by using floaters that surrounded the petroleum derivatives, and we also employed the services of two specialized private companies that used a product to dissolve the fuel in the water," Azzi tells L'Orient Today.
Regarding the polluted sand on the primarily affected beach, he assures that "municipal workers are working to clean it, and the beaches will soon be safely accessible." The Civil Defense also stated that it has undertaken beach cleaning with the municipality.
The pollution likely originates from cleaning the tanks of a power station
The Civil Defense reported the oil spill to the Ministry of Environment. Questioned by L'Orient Today, Tamara al-Zein, the environment minister, indicated "having sent a team on site and awaiting the results of their inspection to see if further analyses are necessary."
Later in the day, the Environment Ministry was to send an update (preliminary pending an official announcement Saturday) from the inspectors of its technical team, which estimated that "the source of this oil pollution likely comes from cleaning the tanks of the Jiyeh power station."
The city indeed hosts one of the country's major and obsolete power stations, operating on fuel oil and containing tanks within its perimeter. In 2006, during the July war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli aviation hit these tanks, causing a major oil spill that could only be fought a month later, after affecting all the Lebanese coastline north of the power station.
In its statement, the team from the ministry states it detected a smell of hydrocarbons and traces of black spots, both in the water and on the rocks of a nearby beach, even though the sand had previously been cleaned. Asked by experts about the incident, restaurateurs and private beach owners in the area assured not having seen any ships off the coast for about a week. A local fisherman recounted witnessing a similar incident during the winter. This led the ministry team to conclude that the spill resulted from tank cleaning.
"Following this field investigation, the Ministry of Environment will ask the judiciary to open an investigation to determine the facts and prosecute anyone who might be involved in this incident," concludes the text.
The municipal council president also "suspects" that the spill might originate from the power station itself, "either due to a handling error or a tank cleaning process," but does not confirm anything. "We observed that the spill came from that direction," he states.
An investigation has been opened by the Internal Security Forces (ISF) with the assistance of the Environment Ministry. Whether the responsible party is private or linked to the power station, accountability is necessary to prevent such incidents in the future. The spillage of hydrocarbons into the seawater and the resulting pollution severely impacts the biodiversity of the coastline. According to successive reports from the Marine Studies Center of the National Council for Scientific Research (NCSR), the latest of which was made public this week measuring bacterial pollution of the coastline in 2025, the beaches of Jiyeh are generally among the cleanest in the country.
Aside from the 2006 oil spill, Jiyeh has experienced other oil spills, including a particularly dramatic one in July 2021. A serious fuel leak also occurred in February 2020 near another outdated power station in Zouk (Kesrouan), at a pipe discharging oil from a floating Turkish power plant to the station (Lebanon had relied for years on electricity produced by Turkish power ships). In May 2019, the beaches of Jadra, near Jiyé, were affected by a severe hydrocarbon spill, while oil ships delivering their fuel to the station were blamed.
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