 to the inland Dead Sea (center) to stem its rapid disappearance.)
A planned pipeline would deliver water from the Red Sea (center below) to the inland Dead Sea (center) to stem its rapid disappearance.
Image: NASA
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An ambitious plan to build a pipeline to carry water from the Red Sea to the shrinking Dead Sea lurched forward this month, after the World Bank held hearings to gather public comments on the proposal. But environmentalists charge that alternative plans to save the Dead Sea would be cheaper, more flexible and would have less impact on the region’s ecosystems.
If the project proceeds, a 180-kilometer buried pipeline will carry up to 2 billion cubic meters (m3) of sea water per year from the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea through Jordanian territory to the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea is world's lowest inland area. Proposals have been put forward to set up the pipeline so that the downward flow of the water goes through a hydroelectric plant that would in turn power a desalination plant, providing up to 850 million m3 of fresh water per year to the parched region. Brine from the desalination plant would be discharged into the already-saline Dead Sea, replenishing water that is evaporating from the lake at a rate of more than 1 meter per year.
The estimated cost of the project would be at least US$10 billion, of which about $2 billion would be for facilities that would pump the desalinated water from the Dead Sea towards Amman — a distance of 200 kilometers, and a difference in altitude of 1,000 meters.
Public discourse
The World Bank in the past two weeks held public forums on the proposal in six cities across the three regions affected by the plan: Amman and Aqaba in Jordan; Eilat and Jerusalem in Israel; and Ramallah and Jericho in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The meetings came after the publication last year of three major reports — a feasibility study, an environmental and social assessment and a study of alternatives to the controversial project.
Alex McPhail, team leader for the World Bank's Red Sea–Dead Sea study program, presented the three reports at the cacophonous Jerusalem hearing. McPhail said that the environmental and social assessment, led by the Environmental Resources Management, an international consultancy, indicates that “all potential major environmental and social impacts can be mitigated to acceptable levels” — with one notable exception.
Studies indicate that if more than 400 million m3 of sea water is added to the Dead Sea, the body of water could be afflicted with algal blooms or the formation of gypsum crystals, with effects that could be difficult to predict. But that amount of water or more is needed to stabilize or raise the level of the Dead Sea.
The environmental outcome of mixing Red Sea water into the Dead Sea is one of the project’s biggest stumbling blocks, according to the conduit’s biggest opponent, Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), which is headquartered in Amman.
Ways to water
FoEME favors exploring alternative ways of getting drinking water to the region and saving the Dead Sea. These include increasing water recycling and conservation by Israel and Jordan; importing water from Turkey; and desalinating sea water on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea or at Aqaba, then discharging the brine into the Dead Sea and pumping the fresh water directly to Amman.
Pumping desalinated Mediterranean sea water across Israel to Amman “almost certainly would be cheaper” than pumping it across Jordanian territory, says David Meehan, team leader for the feasibility study. “But my perception is that it would be hugely unpopular in Jordan. Basically Israel would control the tap on the water supply to Amman.”
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18 Comments
Add CommentIt is a real pity that politics could keep a worthwhile project that everyone could benefit from from happening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder what size of bore they would need to funnel sufficient water to maintain the water levels in the Dead Sea and provide potable water to the surrounding peoples? The middle east could bloom again.
I also wonder how they intend to keep organisms from the Red Sea from entering the ecosystem of the Dead Sea... Not much lives there except Almost nothing can survive in this water except some highly specialized green algae and red archaeobacteria. Not sure how dumping the brine there would affect that ecosystem either.
Just imagine the Greenie lead uproar today if building the Suez and Panama canals were only now being contemplated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNah, it's usually conservatives that get in an uproar about large infrastructure projects. Can't have the government investing in its own economy and improving people's lives now, can we? And we ESPECIALLY don't want to do anything improve the unemployment rate when the wrong people are in power either....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you think these people are conservatives?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://foeme.org/www/?module=about_us
Climate change stands on its own, as being one of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing the planet today, especially to our scarce water resources.
When those canals were built there was no concept of environmental change and degradation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne unintended side effect might be the prevention of a war over water between Israel and Jordan (amongst others). I agree that the Jordanian government would have severe reservations about Israel controlling the tap (and with good reason).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWouldn't this cause a huge increase in the salinity of the Dead Sea? Or else cause salt deposits, if the water can't hold any more salt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery clever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey plan to use the Dead Sea as a dump for salty brine.
And thus "save it".
The only argument is over who does the dumping.
How about instead a really novel idea?
How about stopping all that water diversion from the Jordan River that used to bring more than enough water into the Dead Sea to keep it stable?
And you're saying that,realistically,there would be no repercussions in implementing your "novel" idea? How about restoring full flow to the Colorado River? Same concept - how well would that work? It's easy to make such comments, but a lot harder to demonstrate the viability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBtw, the salty water that would be put into the Dead Sea from desalination plants would have about the same salinity as what is already there.
I doubt you understand the implications of what you are proposing. Where would all the people get their drinking & water for crops from if they ceased using water from the Jordan River? Surely it is not your preference that these people simply have to move or perish? Misanthropy is an ugly thing. I hope you do not subscribe to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for dumping brine, the salinity of the Dead Sea is so high that you can lay on your back & read a book while laying in it. The brine they propose to dump as a by-product of desalination would still be only a fraction as salty as the naturally occuring Dead Sea water.
Sorry. Meant to be replying to 8. CharlieinNeedham 08:33 PM 2/28/13
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJordan and Israel were already talking about the Dead-Red project in 2006 when I was Jordan's country lawyer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.law.gonzaga.edu/gjil/2006/03/shared-water-resources-in-the-jordan-river-basin/ This is not a new story. Why has it suddenly become newsworthy now?
From the article..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this...The project’s progress depends on all three parties signing a treaty, but Bromberg wonders whether the Israeli government is prepared to enter a treaty with the Palestinian Authority......
Whereas we all know how eager the Arab countries in the region are to sign treaties with Israel. (or even acknowledge that Israel exists)
Yes, sickening bias. What's new?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, suppose they add brine to the Dead Sea for 100 years. Assuming they add enough to replace water lost to evaporation, how much will that increase the salinity? Keep in mind that whatever salt is added stays there, but the accompanying water does not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would be roughly enough to replace the salinity lost due to very little coming down the river Jordan and the extraction of various salts from the Dead Sea by chemical companies. In other words it would keep things approximately as they should be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince the water is almost exclusively for Jordan, why would Jordan accept the cheaper route when it gives other nations control over Jordanian survival? What if the Israelis decide to charge per gallon? Politics stink but it is an important fact of life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you add salty water to a close system with no fresh water entry, just by the unavoidable evaporation, the salt concentration in this sea will go higher and higher as time goes by. If the wall that blocks the Red sea flowing to the Dead sea is fully open, as to allow in and out currents to form, as the Mediterranean-Atlantic currents in and out that exist in the Gibraltar strait, things may be probably less dangerous. As the Bible states clearly that from the four walls of the Jerusalem's temple, rivers will flow, that will reach the salty waters' sea and will regenerate it, perhaps in this case it would be better waiting to the God's actions. Salut +
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