Aral Sea's Return Revives Withered Villages

"This was a very rich village, but when the fish died the people left," said Zhasan Kenzhenbayev, 38, pointing to abandoned homes in Tastupek.

Near the village of Zhambul, the detritus of a failed policy is startlingly visible. Six rusted fishing trawlers sit on a parched desert of sand, salt, scrub and broken seashells, ghostly reminders that this wind-swept expanse was once the bed of a great inland sea.

The village, sad and dusty, shimmers in the far distance, the water that once washed its edge now a mirage. Camels shade by the prows of the gutted boats -- one of which sports faded lettering announcing that it was called the "Alexei Leonov," after the Soviet cosmonaut who was the first man to walk in space, in 1965.

The region withered as a large fish-processing plant in Aralsk, the main northern port, closed along with fish-receiving stations by the shore. Muynoq, the main southern port about 270 miles away in Uzbekistan, was left high and dry. Entire villages were abandoned as people fled the encroaching dust bowl.

What had been the world's fourth-largest inland body of water, outranked only by the Caspian Sea and lakes Victoria and Superior, lost surface area as large as Maryland. By 2001, NASA had revised the sea's standing down to number nine.

"We had dry soil, bad water, all our plants disappeared, we couldn't grow vegetables," said Zhannat Makhambetova, 39, head of the Aral Tenizi Society, a local nongovernmental organization promoting fisheries. "It was a tragedy for people. Changes happened in nature but also in people. They lost their hope for this region, and they concentrated on any chance to leave."

For those who stayed, the growing desert spelled a health disaster. Fierce dust storms kicked up not just sand and salt, but also chemicals and pesticides that had washed into the sea from intensive farming along the two rivers. Cancers, respiratory diseases, anemia, miscarriages, and kidney and liver diseases in the region soared, according to Kazakh statistics and local doctors.

Worse, the Aral Sea contained Vozroshdeniye Island, a testing ground for Soviet biological weapons, including agents such as bubonic plague and anthrax. The island, where live anthrax spores were discovered in 1999, joined the mainland as the water retreated. The United States has since helped decontaminate 10 anthrax burial sites on Vozroshdeniye.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, locals tried to save the sea themselves, building a sand barrier that dammed the tiny channel that conveys water from the northern to the southern parts of the sea. It washed away. An April 1996 storm destroyed a second attempted dike.

But the effort showed that the northern sea could be rejuvenated. The World Bank and the Kazakh government joined forces to build a permanent dam. That construction was accompanied by improvements along the Syr Darya River, where as much as 40 percent of the water was lost because of poorly built irrigation canals and other infrastructure.

Since the dam's completion in 2005, the surface area of the northern sea has expanded from 1,440 square miles to more than 2,000. Fish stocks have slowly been replenished with the help of a Danish environmental group; sturgeon will be reintroduced to the sea this year.

Aralsk port, though still dry, is showing signs of revival, and a new fish-processing plant handled 2,000 tons of fish last year. The number of houses occupied in Tastupek village has jumped from eight to 17. The return of fish to the local diet, coupled with improved drinking water and the ability to grow vegetables, has brought some health benefits, according to Marat Turemuratov, a doctor in Aralsk. Residents' health has also been helped by improvements in the microclimate, which now has fewer sandstorms and more rain.

"For the first time in a long time, I feel some optimism," Turemuratov said.

Engineers say that a second phase of the dam project, if it is financed, could bring water all the way to the Aral's former northern shores, including to Aralsk. Work might begin in 2009, but the design of the project and whether it can restore the sea to its former depths remain a matter of debate.

The men of Zhambul for years drove eight miles along a rutted track on the former seabed to reach their boats. In the past two years the journey has shortened as the water has advanced.

"We believe the water will come back to us, right to the village," said Kurmanay Kopzhavov, 34, a fishing inspector who lives in Zhambul. "We have a future again."