In an escalation of the environmental pollution issue, the National Litani River Authority called on the Ministry of Industry to immediately implement the decisions to close a number of violating slaughterhouses in the town of Bednayel in Baalbek district, and to take the necessary legal and administrative measures against them.
This came in an official letter addressed by the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director General of the Authority, Dr. Sami Alawiya, to the Minister of Industry, Joe Issa Al-Khoury, based on a joint technical examination conducted between the two sides on September 1, 2026.
The field examination showed that some unlicensed slaughterhouses continued to practice slaughtering and cutting operations despite the issuance of previous decisions to stop them, in addition to monitoring the discharge of liquid waste in one of the slaughterhouses inside a sedimentation hole.
The Authority explained that these violations deal a blow to efforts that have been ongoing for years, during which cases of blood and untreated wastewater were documented in the waterways located within the Litani River Basin.
The Authority called for preventing the resumption of slaughter operations in the suspended facilities until their legal conditions are corrected and effective treatment plants are operated, while requiring them to close any openings or exits that exceed the regular treatment path.
The demands also included conducting a joint subsequent examination and taking laboratory samples to verify the facilities’ compliance with environmental controls, within the framework of a series of field tours carried out by the Authority in cooperation with the Ministry of Industry to protect water resources and public health from the risks of pollution.
