It is what they call filler, isn't it?
"UN chief decries the drying up of the Aral Sea" by Associated Press | April 5, 2010
NUKUS, Uzbekistan — The drying up of the Aral Sea is one of the planet’s most shocking environmental disasters, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said yesterday as he urged Central Asian leaders to increase efforts to solve the problem.
Once the world’s fourth-largest lake, the sea has shrunk by 90 percent since the rivers that feed it were largely diverted in a Soviet project to boost cotton production in the arid region.
The shrinking of the sea has ruined the once-robust fishing economy and left fishing trawlers stranded in sandy wastelands, leaning over as if they dropped from the air.
Maybe they can commiserate with the Gulf Coasters.
The sea’s evaporation has left layers of highly salted sand, which winds can carry as far away as Scandinavia and Japan, and which plague local people with health troubles.
Ban toured the sea by helicopter as part of a visit to the five countries of former Soviet Central Asia....
The Aral Sea catastrophe is one of Ban’s top concerns on his six-day trip through the region...
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