Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI) is presenting a program for complete protection for all the ammonia in Haifa Bay. According to an IMI document submitted to Haifa Chemicals deputy chairman and CEO Nadav Shachar obtained by "Globes," IMI is capable of providing both full protection for the ammonia tank against every relevant threat and a solution for future threats. The IMI document indicates that the protection package offered by the company for the ammonia tank also includes a direct hit by a missile or rocket.
The IMI proposal, which was submitted to Haifa Chemicals in recent days, was devised after IMI specialists toured the site of the ammonia tank, mapped it, and analyzed the relevant threats.
The proposal submitted by the IMI head of strategic armor protection stated that it will be possible to conduct these protection operations without disrupting the ammonia tank's operations and maintaining its continuous functioning. The document further stated that IMI has already developed and implemented special armored protection solutions in recent years for other sites facing threats.
The IMI proposal for the ammonia tank was submitted a few days after the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced that the effort to promote construction of an ammonia facility in southern Israel had failed. A tender published for the proposed facility attracted no bids from developers. Following this event, the Ministry of Environmental Protection notified Haifa Chemicals management that it had to present a plan for closing the ammonia tank on short notice. Haifa Chemical's toxin permit, under which it operates the ammonia tank in its current format, is due to expire at the beginning of March 2017. The Ministry of Environmental Protection has made it clear that it will not renew this toxin permit without an orderly plan for closing the ammonia tank. The Ministry of Environmental Protection today conducted a hearing for Haifa Chemicals on the matter.
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, who has been leading a prolonged battle to remove the ammonia tank from Haifa Bay, told "Globes" that he did not accept the IMI document. "IMI is welcome to move the ammonia tank to its offices in Ramat Hasharon," he said. Yahav added, "The Haifa municipality has been campaigning for over a decade to get this ticking bomb out of its backyard, and the state is dragging its feet and endangering over half a million people. The protection plan for the tank is nothing but another dubious attempt to postpone the obvious and essential solution of getting the ammonia out of Haifa Bay immediately."
Last March, a senior IDF officer told "Globes" that the ammonia tank was well protected, and that the most extreme scenario of being hit by enemy fire would not cause a disaster.
The officer made it clear that professionals in the Home Front Command were constantly considering the level of protection for the ammonia tank. At a time of security tension, in which the tank is liable to be within the range of rockets and missiles from Lebanon, the quantity of toxic material in the tank can be quickly reduced.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 20, 2016
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