The belated battle to revive the dying Dead Sea
Forty years of wandering from bad decisions to neglect have done terrible damage to the lowest place on earth
By Shuki Sadeh
28 April 2011 Short-term thinking. Unthinking optimism – “everything will work out.” Putting off hard decisions, selling national assets for peanuts, and first and foremost, of course, a lack of governance. These are the factors behind the ecological monster that is the Dead Sea, which is about to flood the hotels built in the Ein Bokek oasis. After one High Court ruling, two biting reports by the state comptroller and any number of warnings about the gravity of the situation, the government is supposed to finally make decisions. It has to decide how to rescue one of Israel’s most important tourism destinations, the lowest place on earth. After 20 years of foot-dragging, it has to decide how best to stop the rising level of the sea’s southern half from swamping the hotels. Last Thursday, hearing a petition by the Dead Sea Hotels Association, Supreme Court Justice Eliezer Rivlin voiced concern that the state had its own ideas about the pace of things. The state’s representative asked not to be forced to make a decision before May. “Madam said May but didn’t say which year,” gibed Justice Asher Grunis. In any case, the court gave the state until August to make some decisions. Dr. Yaakov Nir, a geologist who has been monitoring the Dead Sea’s condition for years, finds the situation unacceptable. “Many absurd things have happened over the years, and sadly, the stupid ideas continue,” Nir says. “I don’t know if it’s corruption or something else, but I’m sure it isn’t wisdom. When experts come from abroad and see what we’ve done to the Dead Sea beaches, they ask why we did this to ourselves.” … Israel’s ignoring of nature was the root of the evil behind the damaging of the Dead Sea. Israel built its main water conduit from north to south in the 1950s. At the time this was hailed as progress; only later came recognition of the tremendous damage it caused. Since the national conduit redirected water to central Israel, it all but eliminated the flow of natural water down the Jordan River south of Lake Kinneret. Israel’s neighbors Syria and Jordan diverted the course of the Jordan and Yarmouk rivers too. The upshot was that during the 20th century, the Dead Sea fell 25 meters. Also to blame for the drop in sea level is the Dead Sea Works, owned by Israel Chemicals (ICL ), which in turn is owned by the Ofer family. DSW is responsible for 20% of the drop in sea level, according the Geological Institute. It siphons seawater into evaporation pans south of the sea, from which it extracts the potash it sells worldwide as fertilizer. The drop in sea level has created other problems, one being sinkholes – yawning holes that suddenly appear, mainly in the northern part of the sea. The roads in the area also need maintenance. …
