ocr: The Assad regime's most expensive and controversial environmental project has been the Euphrates Dam, power station and irrigation network at Tabaqah. The dam's vast man-made reservoir, Lake Buiayrat al Asad, engulfed some 300 villages and destroyed b2,UUU acres offertile tarmland. Syria'si industrial program has on occasion damaged the environment. A giant cement factory, built by the East Germans at l'artus in the mid- 197US, has been heldr responsible for polluting a valuable stretch of Mediterranean coastline.
