Cabinet ministers authorised a NIS 105 million ($30 million) emergency drought restoration program on Sunday in an effort to rehabilitate seven streams in northern Israel, taking the unprecedented step of bringing desalinated water straight to the Sea of Galilee, which is dangerously low.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated it was “an urgent plan to deal with the drought problem,” stemming from local weather change.
“Over the years, Israel has shown an amazing ability to deal with the water problem, which has caused endless conflicts in our region for thousands of years, also in the new era,” he stated, at the beginning of the weekly cupboard assembly. “But thanks to technology, initiatives, and creativity, we have succeeded in overcoming it.”
Netanyahu additionally provided Israeli water know-how experience to Iranians in a video message.
As said by the Israel Water Authority, a five-year-long drought has plunged water tables to the bottom stage in no less than 98 years, since scientists first started taking taking measurements in 1920.
Northern Israel is experiencing one of the worst droughts in 100 years, leaving the nation’s water tables with a deficit of 2.5 billion cubic liters of water, in contrast to non-drought years.
That deficit is the equal of a million Olympic-size swimming swimming pools, water that will usually movement by way of Israel’s streams and underground water tables towards the Sea of Galilee and different water sources.
Visitors prime up their glasses with handled sea water at a desalination plant close to Hadera, Israel (Shay Levy/Flash90)
The plan authorised on Sunday additionally consists of two new desalination crops, to be constructed on the coast within the Western Galilee. The Energy and Water Resources Ministry additionally set desalination targets by way of 2030 that can double the present output of desalinated water to 1,100 million cubic meters (some three,885 million cubic toes).
Additionally, the plan will convey desalinated water straight to the Sea of Galilee to take care of the lake’s plunging stage. “We are turning the Sea of Galilee into a reservoir for desalinated water,” Netanyahu stated on Sunday. “This is innovative and important, at least to the extent we are doing this, and has not been done until now.”
The Sea of Galilee is at present at 213.46 meters (689 toes) under sea stage, half a meter under the hazard zone of the decrease crimson line. In 2001, the Sea of Galilee was at an even decrease stage, 214.87 meters (705 toes) under sea stage, which was christened because the lake’s “black line.”
The black line is a dangerously low stage that may create irreversible ecological issues, together with an enhance within the water’s salinity and algae blooms that may do everlasting injury to the water high quality, and wildlife. Last yr, the Water Authority had to pump 17,000 tons of salt out of the Sea of Galilee to be certain that the decrease water ranges didn't trigger the water to get too salty.
Within 4 years, up to 100 million cubic meters of desalinated water could possibly be pumped straight into the Sea of Galilee.
Hikers close to the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s largest freshwater lake (Yossi Zamir/Flash90)
After the arrival of desalination crops, Israel diverts simply 30 million cubic meters of water south of the Sea of Galilee to the nationwide water system, which is the minimal wanted to maintain the water community functioning.
However, many communities north of the Sea of Galilee aren't linked to the nationwide water system and depend on diverting streams. The program authorised Sunday instructs the Water Authority to develop a plan by the tip of 2018 to join the remaining elements of the nation to desalinated water, in order that they're not diverting about 150 million cubic meters (5,297 million cubic toes) of water from the lake.
The NIS 105 million ($30 million) might be invested in seven of Israel’s northern streams, together with the Kishon, Hadera and Zippori streams. Part of the rehabilitation of the streams will embrace pumping desalinated water straight into them. Increased movement into the streams and the Sea of Galilee may allow the Water Authority to permit extra water to run by way of the Jordan River to the Dead Sea, which is receding by a charge of roughly 1.1 meters (three.6 toes) per yr.
Illustrative: Wadi Og, a stream which runs from close to Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, November 26, 2014. (Maxim Dinshtein/Flash90)
Scientists are nonetheless learning the impact of pumping desalinated water straight into Israel’s pure waterways. As late as final yr, that plan was nonetheless thought-about a distant emergency stopgap measure, however after northern Israel fell far brief of the typical rainfall for the fifth yr in a row, specialists determined to revisit the proposal.
“This strategic plan will address the exceptional situation of the last five years of continuous drought, which has brought Israel’s water economy to the greatest natural water shortage in the past 100 years and the water resources in the north to an unprecedented low,” Water and Energy minister Yuval Steinitz stated on Sunday.
Last month, the Water Authority launched a multi-million-shekel marketing campaign of public service bulletins to remind the general public that desalinated water isn't a “magic bullet” and Israelis nonetheless want to save water.