Posted on 10/10/2009 10:37:33 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
Environmentalists concerned about the threat to its unique eco-system.
Water levels in the lowest and saltiest body of water on the planet are falling by more than four feet a year, giving rise to quips that the Dead Sea is dying.
The government in Amman has said it is planning to extract more than 10 billion cubic feet a year from the Red Sea 110 miles to the south, feed most of it into a desalination plant to create drinking water, and send the salty waste-water left over to the Dead Sea by tunnel.
Similar plans are already the subject of a two-year feasibility study agreed by the Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians in a rare example of cross-border Middle East co-operation.
But the Jordanians have decided they cannot wait any longer. "Jordan will start with the first phase with the help of donor countries and private investors," its minister for water, General Maysoun Zu'bi, said this week.
But environmentalists said the two years allotted to the feasibility study were already too short for a proper assessment of the risks posed to the Dead Sea's unique ecology.
Environmentalists are concerned that the mixing of two different types of salt-water might have serious ecological consequences, including a build-up of algae.
There are allied plans to build up the Dead Sea's roads and hotels for tourism. There are also fears that increased salinity in the Red Sea might damage fish and coral.
"We know the plan's attractive to the Jordanian government because it will bring so much money circulating in the economy," said Munqeth Mehyar, director of Friends of the Earth in the Jordanian capital, Amman. "But the price is too high."
The study for the so-called "Red-Dead Water Conveyance Project", funded by seven donor nations and commissioned by the
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Enviros are hypocrites. They will tell you that nature needs to take it’s course and that humans interfere in the “natural order” of things.”
They make perfect sense if their agenda is to interfere with human development. All they do is put up roadblocks — to anything.
Oh yeah, just barely. The joint project in early planning stages some years ago called for a canal and tunnel (the intervening heights are hundreds of feet), and a hydroelectric installation that would never A) pay for itself (the important part) and B) would never run fast enough to overcome evaporation at some point after the Dead Sea’s level rose some distance, meaning the Galilee would never be submerged.
and thanks, rmlew.
A better pipeline [Dead Sea-Red Sea or Mediterranean?]
Jerusalem Post | 6-29-09
Posted on 06/29/2009 5:53:08 AM PDT by SJackson
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