Israel runs dry

July 8, 2008 - 2:59 PM by Nicky

Uh Oh. Israel’s in a water crisis. On Monday, the water level of Lake Kinneret, Israel’s main reservoir, fell below the red line, and today former head of the Water Commission, Dan Zaslavsky, warned that Israel’s faucets could run dry by mid-summer.

Sounds serious right? So why hasn’t anyone done anything about this up to now?

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As a Brit turned Israeli, this is something I find a little hard to understand.

Back when I lived in the rainy wet UK, not a summer used to go by without some kind of hosepipe ban. The rivers would be full, the reservoirs seemingly flush with water, but the government said there was a drought, so our hosepipe’s went off, and the grass would turn brown, and our gardens wilt. I remember summer after summer watering the garden with our bathwater.

Here in Israel, however, a country where it doesn’t rain for almost six months of the year, and where this year in particular, winter with its heavy rains just didn’t come, water conservation is a topic that seems to extend no further than the op-ed pages.

Israel is in a serious water crisis. Pumping from the Kinneret will have to stop soon, and we still have the worst of the summer to come. Water supplies will be cut to towns that receive water from the National Water carrier, agriculture will be badly hit, and damage could be substantial.

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Everyone saw this coming, but nothing significant was done to stop it. What about desalination plants, what about an education campaign for Israel’s public, what about a little forethought for heaven’s sake? Come on. This is the country that invented drip irrigation.

“We need to pray for a serious rainy winter,” Shuli Chen, the Water Commission official who has been measuring the Kinneret’s level for the last eight years (now there’s a job…), told a local Israeli paper. “An average winter won’t suffice. If there is not a serious flow of water into the Kinneret this winter, our situation will be very bad.”

Tags: , , , , , , , • Category: General, Life, Politics 

Comments

4 Comments on Israel runs dry

  1. David-Joe on Wed, Jul 9th 2008 1:17 AM

    2. Why must Israel worry? Just look at the global warming hysteria over nothing.

    Projections about running out of water have been heard before in Israel.

    Israel is not Europe or the UK and not the US. It is Israel, in the mid-east and worry is not a natural cultural phenomenon.

    And even if it is correct what can anyone do? Nothing. Conserving water will only adjust things slighty because the rate of evaporation is the same and so…..

    Dont worry.

  2. Nicky on Wed, Jul 9th 2008 10:36 AM

    3. Thanks David-Joe, I’ll cross it off my worry list!

    But seriously. Just because Israel’s had water problems before now, doesn’t mean that things aren’t serious now.
    I know this is a country that likes to fix things at the last mintue with a bit of a glue and a piece of string, but still…

  3. Dave Faulkmore on Wed, Jul 9th 2008 12:28 PM

    4. Maybe get more people to immigrat to Israel is the answer?! American body fat ratios might make a difference if we all die all of a sudden and our body fluids somehow make it (hopefully fully processed by nature) into the lake…. just kidding…

    Or Israel can go hardcore into desalination. Waiting until the lake runs out of water is obviously foolish. Of course it will happen. At least this should be the thinking when planning water management policy. Plan for the worst and then factor in known risks, a buffer, and then like IT projects double or triple it. That is what the reality will be.

    Also cut off the water to Hamas. Let them make their own desalination plants (cough cough)…

  4. David-Joe on Thu, Jul 10th 2008 3:06 AM

    5. :-]

    I have lived in New York City for 12 years now and I still cannot get used to the New York paranoia. They are very nervous people.

    I am scheduled to return to Israel permanently in 2009 but each time I do I see how relaxed we really are. As an Israeli I am always so relived that we are the the way we are compared to NYC.

    I was raised on a kibbutz and for a few years directed the drip irrigation method we used. Kibbutzniks have always been conservation minded in mindand deed with water. It is the wasteful city people that need to pay attention.

    Tel Aviv is a wonderful city, better and nicer than New York City, but people think that everything is just “made” and is always available.

    Not so. But again Nicky I recommend not to worry….. Shalom.

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