Mekorot National Water Company today suspended the pumping of water from the Kinneret to the National Water Carrier. The water level in the Kinneret has fallen to 214.38 meters below sea level, just 50 centimeters above the Black Line, which designates irreversible harm. This year's drought has pushed the Kinneret to an all-time low.
Minister of National Infrastructures Benjamin Ben-Eliezer today ordered preparations to be made to immediately increase output by desalination plants. "If this drought continues, we'll have to increase desalination to as much as one billion cubic meters of water," he said during a presentation of Mekorot's work plan for 2009 today.
The government's current desalination target is 600 million cubic meters of water a year by 2013. Desalinated water is mainly designated for households, which consume 750 million cubic meters of water a year. Ben-Eliezer ordered Mekorot chairman Eli Ronen and CEO Ido Rosolio to prepare for the possibility of receiving 750 million cubic meters of desalinated water by 2016.
Commenting on the delays in the construction of Mekorot's desalination plant at Ashdod, Ben-Eliezer said, "This is another example of how bureaucracy disrupts the performance of important projects in Israel."
In a separate development, 13 gardening firms, nurseries, fertilizer producers, and irrigation equipment importers yesterday appealed to the High Court of Justice against the Water and Sewage Administration's directive banning the watering of gardens. The companies said that the directive would hurt their businesses, and that the gardening industry employed 50,000 people.
The petitioners claimed, among other things, that water used for gardening, was not wasted, but returned to aquifers, while industry used far greater quantities of water that not only did not get recycled, but actually contaminated water sources.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on January 21, 2009
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