Water waste comes under fire

By MIRIAM BULWAR DAVID-HAY (TRANSLATED)
The city of Herzliya is pouring thousands of liters of cleansed water from its waste purification plant into the sea every day instead of using it for agriculture, according to the Tzalul environmental organization. And the "high-quality" water is being wasted because the Israeli Water Authority has not yet prepared proper storage facilities for it, reports www.local.co.il. According to the report, Tzalul wrote to the Water Authority and criticized it for constantly warning of the water crisis in Israel but at the same time failing to do everything in its power to prevent the loss of large quantities of water. The letter said that seven million cubic liters of purified water suitable for agricultural irrigation were being poured into the sea from the Herzliya waste purification plant every year. "It is not possible that on the one hand the Water Authority makes widespread calls to the public to save water, and against this does not act with determination to prevent the loss of purified water," the letter said. It added that Tzalul had fought for many years for the Herzliya plant to be upgraded, and now that it had been and was producing water suitable for recycled uses, this "valuable property" was being wasted because of "faulty logistical reasons." No response was reported from the Water Authority.