 water.
“We are in the process of choosing a company that would tell us how to check the possibility of adding magnesium to the water,” noted Gil. “There are varying estimates regarding the expense of such an additive. There is no established information or survey from which we can tell how necessary or efficient this would be.”
She said that even if it transpired that there was a need, “it might cost hundreds of millions of shekels a year. It could affect the price of the water, and we would be the ones who’d have to explain to the public why the prices have risen.”
Desalination plants consume vast amounts of energy, and producing the electricity to power them pollutes the air. But Gil said they account for only a small percentage of the electricity used in Israel. Besides, she noted, air pollution isn’t what worries environmentalists, but pollution of the oceans from the flow of wastewater from the desalination process, which contains high concentrations of salt. This also contains the various chemicals used to treat the water. Gil said routine follow-up is done on the effects of salt concentration, and until now it has been seen as having only a localized effect.
Another concern regarding desalination plants is the risk of becoming too dependent on them. One document compiled by a conservation group recently found that the plants can be sensitive to emergencies in the vicinity, such as an oil spill. The membrane technology inside the plants – which separates the salt from the water – cannot handle this type of pollution and can be badly damaged as a result. Proof of this came just a few weeks ago, when oil from one of the Electric Corporation’s installations in Ashdod leaked into the sea. Afterward, the Health Ministry ordered three of the desalination plants to immediately suspend operations.
But government ministries believe further study is required to see what the accumulative effect is from all of the installations.
A study is currently underway at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute in Haifa. Dr. Jack Silverman, one of the researchers involved, says they are trying to assess what effect the high salt concentrations will have on wildlife at the bottom of the sea.
“Along the bottom, there are very important processes that go on with respect to the survival of the ecological system,” he noted.
“Our working assumption is that the concentration may influence these processes and, according to the initial findings, there is an effect,” he said.
“It’s not the desalination that’s the problem,” the Water Authority responded. “It is one of the solutions for adding to the water supply, which also allows for rehabilitating aquifers in terms of quality and quantity.”
So far, desalination plants have been built with almost zero public opposition. But the situation is different in the case of the plant planned for Western Galilee.
Residents there are campaigning against having a desalination plant built near Regba and Lohamei Hageta’ot, two kibbutzim in the Acre area, north of Haifa. They worry about having an industrial-type plant near their agricultural fields and homes.
Citizens are concerned that the landscape would change and the plant would create a lot of noise and pollution. They fear the area would then be used to build even more industrial plants. An experts’ report they prepared recommended instead that the plant be built in the Haifa Bay area, which is already industrialized.
“The northern region is really in need of another water source,” said Gil. “We have been delaying the establishment of a plant in Galilee for years due to the opposition of residents, and now we are looking for alternative sites.”
Gil said of the Haifa option: “We need a plant that can pump water from a clean part of the sea and not in an area such as that bay, where there are still problems with pollution. What is clear is that wherever the new plant is built, it will take at least five years to complete it. And that will leave residents of the north still dependent upon the number of rain clouds hovering over Israel."