Dr. Assaf Rosenthal was not surprised this week by the Water Commission's announcement about the Kinneret reaching the red line. He has been warning about this on the science website for years
This week we were informed that the level of the Sea of Galilee has reached the lower red line, below which it is forbidden to pump, and the summer has only just begun. The desalination plants, as we were informed, are not allowed to reach their full production capacity because someone in the Water Commission or the Treasury fears that God forbid we will reach a situation where the Sea of Galilee is full and then we will have to purchase all the water output of these facilities and pour the water.
Those who think that the drought and lack of water is a local problem are invited to read previous articles that I published on the website:
- The UN also states: we must solve the world's water problem
- Water mill
- Not Hernog's fault
- From the toilet to the faucet
- Climate and desert
- A special project for the knowledge site: mapping the world's water problems
And yet, "a man to himself...", not polite to say, but like many others, I (the little one) have been warning about the conduct of the water sector in our country for a long time,
about a few months ago I introduced To the readers of Mr. Messerschmidt, the German hydrologist, if only those responsible knew how to sort out the little chaff from the many chaff that Messerschmidt published and apply what is right and proper... we would be in a much better situation. According to a survey by the "Society for the Protection of Nature" many residents of the country are ready to save. Nice, but savings on a personal level will only give an emotional boost, (also interesting why many and not all). Personal savings will not solve Israel's water problems. The problem can be solved by correct use (reclamation, use of gray water, etc.) in industry as well as by saving in agriculture.
But above all by immediately stopping the pollution of the existing sources and creating new sources - desalination. Israel exports desalination and purification technologies to the entire world - including desert countries in the Arabian Peninsula. Using the technologies that were invented and developed here is the solution, the problem is that such use requires government intervention, when the minister in charge is the "genius" who pushes for the activation of electricity generation by a coal station, it is not difficult to understand where the problem is.
And another small comment/clarification, the solution of many of the burning problems in Israel has been postponed under the excuse - security? So to the securityists' knowledge, many of the violent conflicts in the past were over water and the expectation is that most future conflicts will break out over water. So maybe a wise man will wake up to prevent one of the next conflicts by producing water - desalination?
Earlier: I suggested thatLet's learn from the Australians How do you treat one of the natural resources that is becoming more and more rare - water. The correct use of the precious resource is in circulation (like other natural resources) full or partial recycling of water has been accepted for a long time in the whole world and in our country. Full recycling, i.e. (direct) reuse of sewage water for drinking is less common, not because of the difficulty in purifying the water but more because of public concern due to "appearance" or an emotional attitude rather than knowledge. Fear of using raw sewage to purify at the highest level purification that will allow drinking.
With a proper view of the situation, the fear is ridiculous since a large part of the partially purified sewage reaches our taps, since after the purified sewage water has gone through the irrigation system of agricultural fields, or simply poured into water reservoirs, lakes, streams, etc., after a short recycling the water reaches the reservoirs from which drinking water is pumped , the pumped water is purified by filtering through sand and activated carbon filters. And to ensure the destruction of disease-causing agents (pathogens), different kinds of germicides (toxins) are added to the water.
On the other hand, in a pure process for sewage water to be used for drinking, (an accepted process that parts of it were developed in Israel) after settling the solids and oxidation, the water is passed through semi-permeable membranes ("ultrafilters") that stop everything that grows over 0.2 microns, then The water is compressed in the "reverse osmosis" process (a process developed in Israel and used in seawater desalination). This process lowers the content of organic substances (carbons) in the water from 8 milligrams per liter to 0.1 milligrams per liter. Finally, the water is treated with ultraviolet waves, and oxygen, a treatment that purifies the water at a molecular level. That means thorough treatment at a much higher level than the (normal) treatment given to drinking water, the result of course is water of a much higher quality than usual.
Compared to us Australians we have the advantage if we know how to use it. In our country, despite the population density, the solution is easier, we live on the edge of a huge body of water, slightly salty (the Mediterranean Sea) but without limiting the quantities of water in it, therefore, a number of desalination plants on the coast combined with full recycling of sewage water will lead to a solution to the water problems in Israel.
Let us recall again that today when seawater is prayed in Eilat, the water comes from a relatively closed basin in which there is little recycling, sewage water has been poured into this basin for many years (to this day, from time to time, raw sewage flows into the sea), no one complains or whistles, no one is afraid Drink the desalinated water even though the water came "in contact with sewage", this is because the desalination process purifies the water.
We will come back and emphasize, water cycle, water desalination, correct and intelligent use of the important resource, will make it possible to meet the growing needs of the country as well as return to nature large amounts of water that were robbed without justification. When he makes the correct economic calculation, a long-term calculation that will perfect the losses due to pollution of wells, drying up of water bodies (the Dead Sea), damage to tourism, damage to the quality of life of residents, by making a correct calculation it will turn out that even from the economic point of view the full cycle is worthwhile.
At that time (May 2004) in one of the first articles I wrote: "It is difficult to ignore the water problems we have with our neighbors, from a survey submitted to the UN it turns out that out of 12 armed conflicts over water between countries, many were "ours". But if we still ignore them, it turns out that even on our own we are "getting along fine": in my youth in Kibbutz Shafiim, we knew that the water in "Well A - which was the westernmost one, closest to the sea, was the best for drinking, more than all the wells that were far to the east." Today "Well - A" is sealed because its water is salty, the phenomenon of salinization of wells returns along the length and breadth of the coastal plain. In the coastal lowlands, wells are closed due to pollution from fertilizers coming from agricultural fields and heavy metals from industrial plants and the like.
All coastal streams are polluted (or dry). The water of the Sea of Galilee, which is supposed to supply about a third of Israel's consumption, is getting polluted in sewage and the "red line" is arbitrarily adjusted to needs that do not take into account the facts. The drying of the Hula did not provide the hoped-for agricultural areas, but eliminated the natural system for filtering and purifying the water that reaches the Sea of Galilee. In the Dead Sea, which is a unique phenomenon in our world (and in the solar system), a billion cubic meters of water are missing every year and the result for the environment, settlements, tourism, (and in the next step also for the potash plants whose contribution to the situation is known) can only be defined as a disaster.
A little to the south - in Eilat they use what is supposed to be the solution to a large part of the water problem in our country and in the world - water desalination, but a large part of the water source for desalination is drawn from the southern Arabi from a brackish water horizon that was close to 6-12 meters below the surface. Since the start of pumping, the water level has dropped by more than 6 meters.
The residents of Eilat will not have a problem, they will simply increase the pumping from the sea to make up for the shortfall, but the damage can be seen on the ground: the fall of the water level in the Arava causes the underground flow to decrease in the wadis and the immediate result is the drying out of many of the trees growing in these wadis.
All of the above (negative) phenomena could have been prevented or at least reduced if the institutions (and the public who use the water) had not behaved in irresponsible ignorance motivated by short-term and inconsiderate stakeholders.
We live in a country where more than half of it is desert and we act like we are sitting on the shore of a Swiss lake!
All this was written in the past, whoever was supposed to do it... didn't act, short-sighted? holes ? Or just… stupid? This is how we came to the brink of disaster. The overall solution is long-term: desalination, recycling, development of cost-saving measures. But since we need an immediate solution... there is a necessity for immediate regulations that will enforce savings: emptying swimming pools, minimal irrigation (ornamental gardens) (just preserve the existing), replacing the plants with those suitable for dry conditions, immediate diversion of purified sewage water to agriculture...
In short, we will start to behave according to our geographical/climatic location, we will behave with water discipline, like in the desert.
