Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Autonomy have signed an agreement on the construction of a water supplying complex on Monday, December 9th. It will connect the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. Israeli and Jordanian mass media were quick to call the pipeline “the project of the century.” They forget about the results of similar projects in the 20th century.
The agreement signed in Washington was a result of long secret talks between the Israeli Minister of Regional Development, Silvan Shalom, the Minister of Water Supply of Jordan, Hasam el-Naser, and the Minister of Water Supply of the Palestinian Autonomy, Shadad Atili. The idea of such a project was born a century ago. It was described in the utopian novel headlined Altnoyland by a founder of political Zionism, Theodor Herzl in 1902. Herzl thought it was real to construct a canal between the Mediterranean and the Dead Seas and used the difference if heights for building a powerful hydro-electric power plant which could provide the whole Jewish state with power.
In early 2000s the project was recalled by Shimon Peres as he took up the position of the Minister of Regional Development. The acuteness of the construction was explained by two factors. First of all, global warming was already felt at the time and there was deficit of water in Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Autonomy. Water was the main reason for wars and clashes in the Middle East from biblical times. And it remains the reason even today. Secondly, the Dead Sea grew shallow very fast. The reason for this was not a change of climate, but plundering of its resources by Israeli businesses and huge water intake from the Jordan River by Jordan.
In fact the talks between Silvan Shalom and his Jordanian and Palestinian colleagues in Aman became a final stage of the century-long marathon. Simultaneously the World Bank decided to conduct its own survey on efficiency of the project. $16 million were spent for the survey. It covered all spheres – politics, economics, environment, and so on. In the end experts concluded that it was a quite promising and profitable project.
Over time the project began to take shape. Considering the revival of the Greens, it was decided to construct not a tunnel, but a pipeline of 180 km. As Israeli and international environmental organizations continue protesting against the project, it will be mainly take place on the territory of Jordan, and the pipeline will pump 200 million cubic meters of water annually.
The cost of the project with due regard to possible difficulties during its implementation is about $250-400 million. And the World Bank is ready to grant a loan to the construction, but only if it will be paid off soon by the countries-participants and investors, including private businessmen who will return their money by gaining profit from water charges. However, it is not clear where the sides will get the necessary sum – for example, Jordan stated that it is ready to finance no more than 5% of the project.
At the same time, all participants stressed that the event would be historic at the signing ceremony. The Minister of Water Supply of Jordan, Hasam el-Naser, stated that the project is absolutely humanitarian, not political. However, his Palestinian colleague added that the project opens a new page in relations between its participants. Silvan Shalom was even more emphatic: according to him, the fact of signing the agreement has strategic importance, as it confirms cooperation between Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians and probably establishes a new situation in the Middle East.
It is true: it is a step which makes Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians closer and dependent on each other, i.e. more open for further cooperation and new projects. The project also settles the water problem of the three countries, and as el-Naser said, “to eliminate deficit of water means to eliminate poverty and improve living standards of our nations and the level of economic development.”
As for the third goal of the project – saving the Dead Sea – experts have serious doubts about it. First of all, they note that to stop shallowing of the Dead Sea it is necessary to fill it with not 100 million cubic meters, but 1 billion cubic meters of water annually. Thus, the pipeline-to-be will cover only 10% of the Dead Sea water demands, i.e. instead of 1.1 m annually, its water level will reduce by 1 m annually.
Secondly, geologists pay attention to the fact that the pipeline will be constructed in the famous African-Syrian Split, i.e. a zone where possibility of an earthquake is very high. In case of an earthquake, a breakdown is inevitable; and million cubic meters of seawater would flood the land, making fertile land of Jordan and Israel salty. It would mean a global environmental disaster for both countries.
Finally, both Israeli environmentalists and activists from the international organization ‘Friends of the Earth’ think that pumping of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea is dangerous itself, as well as a possibility that water from the Dead Sea will get into the Red Sea. Compositions of salt are different in the seas. A water exchange between them can damage unique corals in the Red Sea, lead to appearance of new seaweeds and one-celled animals. The current unique biochemical water composition of the Dead Sea will change and its medical property will be lost.
Ecologists had many times suggested alternative variants of saving the Dead Sea, but all of them were rejected because they were too expensive. We have to wait what will be a result of another dangerous game between a human and nature. The pipeline construction is planned to be finished by 2018.
