Tag Archives: Dead Sea

Israel sees desalination as Sea of Galilee’s savior

A man walks towards an island that has materialized at the southern edge of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

By Dan Williams

DEGANIA DAM, Israel (Reuters) – Some 2,000 years ago, Jesus walked across the Sea of Galilee, according to the Bible. Today, that doesn’t require a miracle.

Long periods of drought and over-pumping have brought the lake low. A reedy island has materialized at its southern edge, and will soon be a peninsula. Holiday-makers and fishermen teeter over expanding boggy beaches to reach the waterline.

The depletion imperils Israel’s biggest reservoir, starving the River Jordan and Dead Sea. It also diminishes a landmark that rivals Jerusalem as a major draw for Christian pilgrims.

Israel sees a solution in desalination, in which it is a world leader. It plans to double the amount of Mediterranean seawater it processes and pipe half of it 75 kilometers (47 miles) to the Galilee.

Rocks are seen above the low-water level of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Rocks are seen above the low-water level of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

“We are doing this in order to save our nature, to fight global warming, to prevent the effect, the devastating effect, of global warming on the Sea of Galilee, and also to create a very significant water storage for the State of Israel,” Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, who holds the cabinet water portfolio, told Reuters.

Noting the lake’s significance to Christians given the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ miracle-working there, Steinitz joked: “If he is coming back, we will make sure that he will have to make a real effort to walk on the water once more.”

Environmentalists welcome the move. Last full in 2004, the Galilee has dropped six meters (18 feet). It may be just weeks away from hitting a “black line” – 214.87 meters below global sea level – where it risk permanent contamination and pressure change from sediment.

Israelis hope winter rains will hold that off until the first desalinated water is piped in, next year.

PRESSURE

Preserving the lake would free Israel to offer Jordan more water under a 1994 peace treaty.

“If there is irreversible damage done to the Sea of Galilee, to the Jordan, to this whole ecosystem, Israel’s enemies could use it against her,” said David Parsons, vice president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, which oversees evangelical outreach to Israel.

“It could also affect Christian tourism to the land. It’s very good to see Israel taking responsible steps now to address this, finally.”

People cool off in the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

People cool off in the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel November 1, 2018. Picture taken November 1, 2018. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Israel’s plan provides for piping in 120 million cubic meters annually. Steinitz hopes to see that almost tripled in a cabinet vote next month. Such capacity, he said, would replenish the Galilee by 2026.

He predicted a small bump to consumers’ water tariffs, to help defray the $622 million infrastructure cost.

Still, with a national election due in 2019 and an unusually wet winter looming, some worry the Galilee could be again neglected.

“The vulnerability of this program is that the Water Authority has to continue to commit to maximizing desalination production,” said Gidon Bromberg, Israel director for the environmental group EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East. “And that is a commitment that could change every year.”

The authority’s director, Giora Shaham, sounded reassuring.

“We need this water, not only for us but also for the Jordanians, because they are in very, very tough conditions now from the water problem point of view,” he said.

(The story restores missing word in 10th paragraph.)

(Writing by Dan Williams; editing by Jeffrey Heller, Larry King)

At least 18 people, mostly children, die in flash flood in Jordan

A child survivor is helped as residents and relatives gather outside a hospital near the Dead Sea, Jordan October 25, 2018. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

DEAD SEA Jordan (Reuters) – At least 18 people, mainly schoolchildren and teachers, were killed on Thursday in a flash flood near Jordan’s Dead Sea that happened while they were on an outing, rescuers and hospital workers said.

Thirty-four people were rescued in a major operation involving police helicopters and hundreds of army troops, police chief Brigadier General Farid al Sharaa told state television. Some of those rescued were in a serious condition.

Many of those killed were children under 14. A number of families picnicking in the popular destination were also among the dead and injured, rescuers said, without giving a breakdown of numbers.

Hundreds of families and relatives converged on Shounah hospital a few kilometers from the resort area. Relatives sobbed and searched for details about the missing children, a witness said.

King Abdullah canceled a trip to Bahrain to follow the rescue operations, state media said.

Israel sent search-and-rescue helicopters to assist, an Israeli military statement said, adding the team dispatched at Amman’s request was operating on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.

Civil defense spokesman Captain Iyad al Omar told Reuters the number of casualties was expected to rise. Rescue workers using flashlights were searching the cliffs near the shore of the Dead Sea where bodies had been found.

A witness said a bus with 37 schoolchildren and seven teachers had been on a trip to the resort area when the raging flood waters swept them into a valley.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Alison Williams)

Reign of sewage in biblical valley may be coming to an end

Sewage flows in Kidron Valley, on the outskirts of Jerusalem July 6, 2017. Picture taken July 6, 2017.

By Ari Rabinovitch

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – There is a foul smell coming from the biblical Kidron Valley.

It’s so bad that King David and Jesus, who are said to have walked there thousands of years ago, would today need to take a detour to reach Jerusalem.

For decades now a quarter of Jerusalem’s sewage has flowed openly in the Kidron valley, meandering down the city’s foothills and through the Judean desert to the east. At its worst, the pollution leaks into the Dead Sea.

The stream runs back and forth between land under Israeli and Palestinian administration, making a fix hard to find. But finally it seems a solution has been reached.

Authorities on both sides have agreed to drain the valley of sewage. According to the plan, a pipeline will be constructed carrying the wastewater directly to new treatment facilities. Each side will fund and build the section that runs through its territory.

Until that happens, however, about 12 million cubic meters of sewage continue to flow through the valley each year.

“Of course it’s damaging the environment and the ecological system,” said Shony Goldberger, director of the Jerusalem district in Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry.

“It’s dangerous and hazardous to the health of the people in many ways.”

Added to Jerusalem’s sewage along the stream’s 30 km (19 mile) descent through the occupied West Bank is effluent from Bethlehem and nearby Arab villages.

Plants grow anomalously in what should be a dry wadi, animals come to drink, and mounds of baby wipes flushed down thousands of toilets sporadically coagulate along the banks. Sewage seeps into the earth, risking contamination of ground water.

Toward the end of the journey it gathers in a makeshift collection pool and much is used to irrigate date trees, which have a high tolerance for pollutants. But every so often gravity pulls the refuse toward the lowest spot on earth, the Dead Sea.

“It’s like a brown stain,” Goldberger said. “It stays disconnected from most of the salty water of the Dead Sea.”

With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at an impasse, projects that require even minor cross-border coordination seldom get done. Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war, but under interim peace deals the Palestinians exercise limited self-rule in part of the territory.

“After decades of not being able to solve the problem, for a thousand and one reasons, professional and political, we reached an agreement for building a pipeline in the valley,” Major General Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of the Israeli government’s activities in the West Bank, told Reuters.

The Palestinian Water Authority said the agreement was reached out of an “interest to clean the area,” but emphasized the two sides were working separately.

While they are both are optimistic, some scepticism remains, since similar plans in past never gained traction.

“We were talking about it, planning it, every time it took two, three, four years. You think you have it, and then the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a truck coming at you,” said Goldberger.

“I hope this solution will reach the stage where it is built.”

 

(Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)