Dead Sea, potash industry play role in Israeli elections
Saving the Dead Sea and the implications on the potash industry are issues due to come up in Israel’s election campaign. A leading environmental group that has been spearheading the fight for the rapidly disappearing inland body of water is planning to call on all political parties in Israel to support efforts to stabilize the Dead Sea.
The Friends of the Earth Middle East is due to hold a conference at the beginning of January to call on all parties to back the effort. Knesset elections are scheduled for January 22. The shrinking of the Dead Sea has been going on for decades, ever since Israel, Jordan, and Syria began diverting water from the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel and the various tributaries of the Jordan River. “Half of the drop in the level of the Dead Sea is due to diversion by the three countries, but the other half is a result of the Dead Sea Works and the Arab Potash Corp.,” charges Gidon Bromberg, Israeli director for Friends of the Earth Middle East. Bromberg is demanding that the potash extraction process change in order to save the sea.
Israel’s Geological Survey estimated the annual shortfall at 700 million cubic meters of water as a result of the diversion and the use by the potash producers. The aim of the campaign is to reach a steady state situation whereby the level of the inland sea does not continue to drop. The water level has dropped by about 27 meters since 1960. The decline has accelerated in recent years, and in the past 12 months the sea fell by a record 1.5 meters. The northern and southern parts of the sea are actually no longer connected.
“We need to get an additional 400 mcm of water a year flowing in the Jordan River into the Dead Sea,” said Bromberg. In recent years, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians were pushing for a project to bring water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea to replenish the latter. The ambitious project would have involved desalination plants and power stations. In November Jordan said that the high cost of the project and the lack of international funding led it to drop the option. In any event, environmental groups and the industries based at the Dead Sea feared that the mixing of the waters would have a negative impact. In addition, the project would not have had any impact on the fate of the Jordan River.
In recent years Israel has been drawing less water from the Sea of Galilee due to the increased use of desalinated water. Israel’s Water Authority is predicting that in the coming years as much as 210 million cubic meters of water will be flowing into the Jordan River as Israel diverts less water from the Sea of Galilee. Friends of the Earth Middle East is hoping that Jordan will invest more funds in sewage treatment and reduce its need to divert fresh water from the Yarmouk, a tributary of the river.
But the environmentalists say that the Dead Sea Works (DSW) and Arab Potash Corp. should be held accountable for the damage they have caused to the water level over the years. “These are private companies that are exploiting the waters of the Dead Sea in the worst possible manner,” said Bromberg. He added that DSW is the only industrial company in Israel that is not charged for the water it uses, and that there is no independent verification of how much is actually pumped out of the northern end of the sea.
DSW said that it pumps 150 to 170 million cubic meters of water annually, and that volume has remained stable. The company views the diversion of water by the countries in the region as the main culprit. It also rejects the demand to pay for water, saying that it does so through the payment of royalties.
The environmentalists counter by saying that their campaign is not aimed at putting DSW and Arab Potash Corp out of business, but to encourage the companies to become more efficient. At present they argue there is no incentive for industry to