Avoidable Water Crisis (Extract)

By LEORA EREN FRUCHT
Extract from an article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here. Israel is facing a severe and completely avoidable water crisis. Moreover, this latest emergency is occurring as global warming is reducing rainfall and an increasing number of aquifers are being closed down due to pollution. According to environmental activist and researcher Alon Tal, many of these developments are due to successive Israeli governments' systematic environmental neglect. Tal is founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (Adam, Teva v'Din), and professor at Ben-Gurion University's Jacob Blaustein Institutes of Desert Research in Sde Boker, where he specializes in water management and policy and joint Israeli-Palestinian environmental projects. Recently, Tal was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for Environmental Protection from Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection. He spoke to The Jerusalem Report about the severe environmental challenges facing Israel and his plans to place the environment on the national agenda by entering the Israeli political arena. The Jerusalem Report: What are the major environmental challenges facing Israel? Prof. Alon Tal: Air quality is at the top of the list. Air quality in Israel is unacceptable one out of eight days - 45 days a year. Epidemiological studies suggest over 1,000 deaths a year due to air pollution - far more than terrorism and more than twice as much as traffic accidents. As for water, since 1980, 289 wells have been closed because of contamination of ground water and an equal number have been redesignated from drinking water to agricultural utilization because they are so polluted. So not only is climate change reducing precipitation in this country, but human negligence is decimating our ground water sources. Why do we find ourselves facing a water crisis every few years? The problem is non-implementation of government policy. The previous water commissioner proposed a water desalination plan that was accepted as government policy, but civil servants in the Finance Ministry sabotaged the program. Would implementation of that plan solve the water crisis? Desalination is a blessing that can allow us to maintain agriculture and public gardens. The desalination plant in Ashkelon is the world's largest and cheapest, supplying water at 50 cents per cubic meter. But it uses conventional energy - at an amount equivalent to a city of 45,000 people. We have to ensure that energy sources for desalination are based on renewables - ultimately solar energy. What have been the recent major environmental victories? Passage of the Clean Air Act in the Knesset and cancellation of the Safdie plan for the expansion of Jerusalem westward are encouraging. There are other impressive victories but, much like the Dutch boy keeping his finger in the dyke, the overall trend is discouraging. At 120 million shekels, the budget of the Ministry of Environment Protection is now half of what it was 10 years ago. That's a reflection of the government's commitment to the environment. Has environmental awareness in Israel increased since you founded the Israel Union for Environmental Defense in 1990? When we began IUED, we were considered eccentrics. I had to go abroad to specialize in environmental studies because at the time there were no such programs in Israel. Today there are many and every newspaper has an environmental correspondent. There were 24 environmental organizations in 1998; today there are over 100. Once the environment was misapprehended as a marginal luxury but today it is seen as a critical social issue. Extract from an article in Issue 12, September 29, 2008 of The Jerusalem Report. To subscribe to The Jerusalem Report click here.