Environmentalists seek to save Dead Sea from really dying

Environmentalists seek to save Dead Sea from really dying
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

AMMAN, NOV 30: The level of the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, is sinking rapidly, and environmental experts are calling for the revival of a canal project to ensure that it survives.

The sea's high salinity means that nothing can live in it, but it attracts tourists who float with ease in its waters and, lying in a deep valley way below normal sea level, it presents a unique environment. ``Forty years ago, the Dead Sea was 392 metres (1,293 feet) below sea level; Today, it is 412 metres (1,360 feet),'' Elias Salameh, geology professor at the University of Jordan, said. `If this drop continues, in another 10 years the Dead Sea will have lost one third of its area, to 650 square kilometres (260 square miles), compared with nearly 1,000 square kilometres at the beginning of the 1960s.''

Salameh blamed the problem mainly on the smaller amount of water feeding the Dead Sea from its northern end, down to 300 million cubic metres (10.5 trillion cubic feet) per year from 1,700 million cubic metres 40 years ago. Water from the Jordan and Yarmuk rivers is being extracted by Syria, Jordan and Israel before it reaches the Dead Sea, which has no southern outlet and is subject to a high evaporation rate because of its situation.

At the same time, Jordanian and Israeli companies are speeding up the evaporation to extract the valuable mineral salts from the water. As a result, the sea is now split into two parts by a causeway of dry land, and the spas on both the Israeli and Jordanian shores which offer mud and saline baths are suffering.

Experts such as Salameh and Hazem al-Nasser, the permanent head of Jordan's Water Ministry and another expert on the Dead Sea, think the answer lies in digging a canal to bring water from the Red Sea, which lies to the South.

The idea is not new -- it was inspired by an Israeli plan some 20 years ago to build a similar canal from the Mediterranean. Its realisation, however, depends on bringing stability and peace to the region, currently wracked by a Palestinian uprising against the Israelis and with a peace settlement between Israel and its neighbours Syria and Lebanon still seeming far off.

With Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, all bordering on the Dead Sea, they would have to cooperate in any project to save it. The 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel provided, among other things, for the development of the Jordan Valley, and the Israelis expressed interest in a Jordanian project for a power station and a desalination plant linked to the canal.

A feasibility study, funded by the World Bank, was carried out in 1997, but Jordanian officials said nothing had been done as the West Asian peace process languished. It estimated the cost of the canal at $800 million, but Nasser said funding would not be a problem, as he anticipated private investment. Salameh, meanwhile, would like to see the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation involved, given the Dead Sea's unique environmental and historical interest.