Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — Israel’s Water Authority has been
able to reduce the amount of water pumped from the nation’s main
source, the Sea of Galilee, by more than half due to above-
average rain and higher use of desalination plants.
“There has been a significant drop, we are now pumping
less than half the multi-year average,” spokesman Uri Schor
said in a phone interview. About 160 million cubic meters (42.3
billion gallons) of water were pumped last year from the
northern Israel lake compared with as much as 360 million cubic
meters the past two to three decades, he said yesterday.
To address water shortages, Israel enacted a conservation
program in 2008 that included boosting the amount of
desalination, or seawater made potable mostly via reverse
osmosis filtration. Desalination currently provides about 330
million cubic meters of potable water, which will increase next
year to 550 million cubic meters, Schor said.
“The water sources will be more stable and there will be a
reliable supply of water until 2025 as long as the public
continues to conserve,” Schor said. Israel gets most of its
drinking water from the Galilee in tandem with desalination.
Two-thirds of Israel is desert and freshwater sources are
scarce, leading the Water Authority to start a countrywide water
conservation campaign in 2008. Need has driven Israeli companies
to develop new and cheaper technologies to desalinate water.
IDE Technologies Ltd., owned by Delek Group Ltd. and Israel
Chemicals Ltd., announced last month it won contracts valued at
$650 million to design and maintain the Western Hemisphere’s
largest seawater desalination plant that’s being developed in
Southern California.
The Sea of Galilee, also known as the Kinneret, is 210.48
meters below sea level, while not as low as the salty Dead Sea
it’s nearing its maximum capacity of 208.8 meters below sea
level, according to the Water Authority website. The level has
been boosted by months of heavy rains.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at
gackerman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
