Welcome to the Soviet economy. If you aren’t part of the glorious Five-Year Plan, tough borscht, comrade.
The Wiki article on the Aral Sea states that the nomenklatura knew as early as 1964 that the Aral was doomed, but didn’t care. Uzbekistan is still diverting water from entering the south part of the sea to irrigate their lucrative cotton fields (which are probably about the only thing keeping their economy going).
Of course, the thing to remember is that there’s an ex-Soviet bioweapons research base on an island in the southern Aral. After 2000, the water level’s dropped so much, it’s a peninsula now, and accessible via land. Supposedly we sent some people over there in 2002 to destroy large amounts of anthrax stored at the base since the ex-Soviets abandoned it in 1991, but nobody’s really sure what else might be lurking in there.
}:-)4