Iraq's River Doctor

Iraq’s River Doctor By Alison Bullock Kagamaster Non-exclusive to AC May 20, 2006 Whether saving pigs outside of Rome or re-engineering the marshlands in southern Iraq, Italian hydrology engineer Andrea Cattarossi has for the past five years lived on two continents. Although Cattarossi and his wife—they were married in Boston in May 2003—relocated from Boston to his home town in Italy, de Treviso, Cattarossi not only works out of an office in Padua, where he attended engineering school, but he frequents Jordan, Kuwait and Baghdad as a consultant through an Italian engineering firm. As an environmental specialist, Cattarossi received advanced training through a southern Calif. floodplain expert Doug Hamilton. 

These professional civil engineers are currently involved in building an infrastructure for the marshlands of south Iraq. In 2004 Cattarossi celebrated his 31st birthday in Baghdad where he met with water resource officials to continue the project based in Fullerton, Calif. and dubbed New Eden Project. When he travels to Iraq a non-governmental organization, the Iraq Foundation, provides accommodations for Cattarossi. He is driven through the desert landscape in an SUV usually manned by the foundation’s manager and engineer schooled in southern Calif. Azzam Alwash, native to the northern tip of the marshlands, also runs New Eden with his wife, a geologist. How did Cattarossi end up as a regular in Iraq? After Alwash returned to his country to help restore the land to its people, he contacted a native Iraqi engineer, Sam Ali, president of Psomas in Costa Mesa, for initial work in the marshlands.