Keeping the Dead Sea Alive - Arab Environment Watch

Jordanian magazine "Jordan Business" has recently published a thorough analytical article on the joint statement by Jordan, Israel and Palestine to conduct a feasibility and environmental impact study for the proposed Red-Dead Canal.

This is the full text of the article:

Last month, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and Israel launched a two-year feasibility study for a project to replenish the rapidly disappearing Dead Sea by way of pumping water into it from the Red Sea. Nisreen El-Shamayleh reports on the meeting at the lowest-lying body of water on Earth.

The Red-Dead Canal project has been on the drawing board for years but has yet to enter the construction phase. The feasibility study, to be conducted by the World Bank, is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2007.
Officials hope that the two-year feasibility study and environmental and social assessment will recommend a multibillion-dollar project to link the Dead Sea with the Red Sea, using a pipeline or canal to suck 1,900 million cubic meters (mcm) of water annually from the Gulf of Aqaba.

France, the U.S., the Netherlands and Japan attended last month’s Dead Sea meeting in Jordan together with the World Bank and the riparian states and have already contributed $8.8 million to fund the $15 million study.
Ministry of Water and Irrigation Official Spokesperson and Assistant General Secretary, Adnan Zoubi, said the three regional players had decided to initiate a feasibility study after meeting at the World Economic Forum in May 2005. Political developments, including the rise of Hamas to power in the Palestinian territories, delayed the launch. Jordan, which has said it is prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians, “whether led by Hamas or any other party,” invited the Israelis and the Palestinians, along with the main parties, to attend last month’s gathering.

The study became possible after the international community stepped in with the financing and after Israel apparently dropped its Med-Dead Sea canal project, which many experts say is not feasible. The Israelis had proposed building a canal extending from the Mediterranean coast to the Dead Sea, including a desalination plant that would sell freshwater to both Jordanians and Palestinians. Such a project would have left the tap under Israeli control, a set up neither Jordan or the Palestinians would have accepted.

Construction of the project, if determined feasible, would cost around $4 billion, last over 10 years and would link the Dead Sea with the Red Sea through a series of pipelines, canals and tunnels. The intended 180-kilometer conduit would carry around two billion cubic meters of seawater per year to associated power, reverse osmosis desalination facilities and would increase freshwater availability to Jordan, Israel and Palestine by an annual 850 mcm.

The project will also include a hydro-electric plant to capitalize on the drop in level of 400 meters from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, generating 550 megawatts of power, which will be used to operate the desalination plant and to nourish electricity networks in the Kingdom. The Israelis and Palestinians will also benefit from the generated power. The proposal also envisages a shared cross-border airport and an industrial city.

Dr. Dureid Mahasneh, former co-chairman of the Jordan-Israel Water Coordination Committee, said Jordan is expected to get 570 mcm of freshwater through desalination and the remaining 280 mcm would be divided among Palestinians and Israelis annually. While Israel’s water share is not yet clear, the Israelis see the project as a means of cementing relations with its Arab neighbors. The Dead Sea is depleting at the rate of about 80 centimeters per year, and will be completely dry by 2050 if urgent action is not taken. The Red-Dead project will quash the 25-meter fall in the level of the Dead Sea over the past century. Experts say the reduction has been caused mainly by the diversion of the Jordan River, which feeds the Dead Sea, for irrigation and drinking water - mostly by Israel, but also by Jordan and Syria. Today, less than 7% of the river’s original flow reaches the Dead Sea.The annual drop in the level of the Dead Sea has already left the nearby lands unstable and susceptible to sink holes, which puts infrastructure, including roads, hotels and chemical plants around the sea, in jeopardy. The natural environment has also been disrupted, affecting bird migrations and desert wildlife.

Dr. Mahasneh said the completion of the study doesn’t necessarily mean execution of the costly project will follow. However, he pointed out that getting funds for the mega-project is not as difficult as it used to be five or 10 years ago because through a build, operate and transfer basis, consumers will be paying for the desalinated water so investors may be more tempted. He added that the liquidity in the region could make it easier to attract investors, especially that the project will spin off to include resort areas, fish ponds, and lakes in Wadi Araba to bolster tourism.

Although many studies have been conducted to explore the feasibility of the project, Dr. Mahasneh said the new study is “using totally different techniques and is not intended to complete or build on what has been done in the past.”

Water politics
There is no doubt that the Red-Dead Canal project is highly political and not just another water project. Professor of Hydrogeology at the University of Jordan, Dr. Elias Salameh said the project may enhance peace and lessen tensions in the region through joint research and scientific studies - a sentiment shared by all the parties. “The project is very important since it will deepen the meaning of peace in the region through joint projects and practical work,” Mr. Zoubi said.
Now key players, the Palestinian Authority was represented by President Mahmoud Abbas’s economic advisor, Mohammad Mustafa, who described the study as “essential in promoting sustainable development of the entire Jordan Valley basin.” In 1990, the Palestinians were excluded from the Red-Dead Canal trilateral committee, consisting of Jordan, Israel and the U.S., which was responsible for the development of the Jordan Rift Valley.

At the launch of the feasibility study in Jordan, Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters the project goes beyond protection of the Dead Sea because the economic cooperation would fortify the peace process. The Israelis are also keen on protecting their touristic investments along the Dead Sea.

Shimon Peres, the Israeli deputy prime minister, said the “project of the canal, or the Peace Conduit…is vital for the preservation of the Dead Sea, but just as much for peace and prosperity in this area,” he said. “In the Middle East we have used too much diplomacy and strategy, and too little economy,” he added.

Regardless of these declarations there is still skepticism of Israeli intentions, especially that it has taken more than its fair share of water. He explained that the Israelis “falsely presume that the [new] desalinated freshwater for the Palestinians might replace the freshwater they illegally take from the West Bank underground aquifers.” Israel still controls 75% of underwater aquifers in the West Bank. Drilling, licensing and water allocation are also under Israeli control.

But not everyone supports the closer cooperation. Jordan’s Islamic-led opposition rejects the project, which it says has the primary aim of promoting normalization with Israel.

“From a principled attitude, we view the project a political move that has the key aim of normalizing ties with the Zionist entity,” Secretary General of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), Zaki Bani Ershaid, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur after the launch of the study.

Environmental critics
Critics on opposite shores of the Dead Sea say the project is a pricey endeavor that fails to address the root cause of the depleting sea, which could destroy the very sea that they are trying to resuscitate. Some environmentalists have warned that the two bodies of water may not mix well and that siphoning out large volumes of water from the Gulf of Aqaba may damage its fragile ecosystem. Some say that pumping less salty water into the Dead Sea could kill its delicate micro-organisms and harm its appeal to tourists. Others argue that the Dead Sea used to be replenished from fresh water from the River Jordan, so it should not be harmed.

Friends of the Earth warned that mixing water from the Red Sea with the unique chemical soup of the Dead Sea could create a natural disaster. “The [Dead Sea’s] mix of bromide, potash, magnesium and salt is like no other body of water on the planet,” said Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of Friends of the Earth in the Middle East. “By bringing in the marine water, this composition will be changed. There is concern about algae growth and we could see the sea change from deep blue to red and brown and the different waters could separate.”

Some environmentalists have gone as far as charging that Red-Dead is driven by the interests of Israeli and Jordanian construction companies eager to capitalize on the mega-project. The Red-Dead canal is not the only solution to the water problem; neither is it going to undo the mismanagement of Jordan’s reources, Dr. Mahasneh explained. “Re-exporting water in the form of watermelons and tomatoes is part of our water mismanagement that also has to stop,” he said.