The series broadcast this week on News Ten, concerning the serious damage to the Dead Sea, revealed that the stakeholders are even now trying to downplay the severity of the lake's demise
I'm following me The series The sad and annoying one on the Dead Sea. Sad, because it turns out that the sea is dying. Irritating, because of the collection of "experts" for the moment who flaunt their ignorance, because when the geologist Eli Raz, who studied the sinkhole phenomenon, speaks, he knows what he's talking about. When the speaker of the "Dead Sea Factories" speaks, even if he is not accurate, it is clear that he has an interest. When people who have been hurt tell about the injury it is sad. But when an "expert" for a moment explains how the "bringer of peace" will save the dying sea, when another "genius" tells how "the sinkholes will stop developing" it's a wave of ignorance and it's a shame.
Until the beginning of the last century, the water level in the Dead Sea was about 390 meters below sea level. On the cliff south of Pasha there are level marks (of the PEF, the Palestine Research Foundation) at a height of two and three meters from the road. Following water diversions by the Syrians, Jordanians and Israelis, the level began to drop, and in recent decades the level has dropped by more than a meter every year.
It is worth emphasizing that the main reason for the drop in the level is the stopping of the entry of stream water from the east, especially the water of the Jordan. The Israeli and Jordanian Dead Sea factories have a quarter (25%) effect on the drop in the level. On the other hand, without water being pumped into the evaporation ponds, today the area in front of the hotels was dry! It is also worth remembering that throughout history there were periods when the southern basin was dry!
Due to the drop in the level, a negative pressure is created which causes water to flow in the subsoil and dissolve salt. The melting of the salt that traps the ground causes the collapse and the creation of the sinkholes. It is true that if the level rises (it won't happen) the water will cover some of the swamps, but on land the melting will continue and the swamps will open and continue.
In the past, the Jordan pumped about one and a quarter billion cubic meters of water into the Dead Sea every year. On top of that there was an addition of water from streams in the east of the Dead Sea. Today they pour a little settled water. The full implementation of the "Movel-Haslom" project will flow into the sea about half a billion cubic meters per year. Now the geniuses of the generation will come up and do the math, if more than a billion and a quarter is missing and you add half a billion, how does that fill the gap? But it's a simple calculation operation that doesn't bother the "experts"...
On the sidelines, among other things, there was a reference to "harm to the goats because of the bypass road". It is appropriate that the director of the Ein-Gadi reserve who complained should learn from the Japanese that: since the beginning of the (new) settlement there was a fence around the agricultural fields of Kibbutz Ai-Gadi. In the early XNUMXs, a fence was erected to strengthen the existing fence, a fence that prevented goats from crossing the farm fields. Out of concern for the goats and a desire to allow visitors a comfortable observation, the kibbutz donated an area adjacent to the entrance to Nahal David where a pasture was grown, and an observation structure dedicated to fallen Druze warriors was erected. That means again: since the middle of the last century, goats have not moved to the fields! But the pasture is dry and the building is neglected. There is no doubt that the bypass road is a detriment (even though it is not in the reserve), but there is no doubt that effective maintenance of the fence, renewal of the pasture area and the neglected observation structure, will solve the problem much better than whining or an unnecessary underground passage.
I have written a lot about the Dead Sea and its surroundings. As someone who has lived around the Dead Sea for many years, as someone who has come to know and love the Dead Sea and its surroundings, I am sad because despite the attempts to revive it (if there are any), there is no doubt that the Dead Sea is dying and that within a few decades what will be left will be a puddle, which will be a sad state of affairs to a beautiful, unique and special place. In the past I wrote a eulogy for a reserve in East Africa, unfortunately not far today and it will be necessary to eulogize the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea can be written on the tombstone
More on the subject on the science website
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Returning half a million is better than nothing and thus stopping or slowing down the drop in the level. It is indeed appropriate to renew the grazing of the goats at the entrance to the reserve, and perhaps also to monitor their number, since the ongoing droughts cause a shortage of natural food for the goats. Even if the current decline continues, hundreds of years will pass before the Dead Sea becomes a third, since its depth in the north is more than three hundred meters below the current level
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