Blowback: Untreated waste from Gaza contributes to Israel’s water crisis
Israel obtains more than 65 percent of its drinking water from six large desalination plants along the Mediterranean coast. On August 30, five of the six had to be shut down after being hit by what a spokesperson for Israel’s national water company Mekorot termed “a huge carpet of microorganisms.” According to a Sept. 17 BBC report, those five - Ashkelon, Ashdod, Palmachim, Sorek A, and Sorek B - were still not operating to full capacity nearly three weeks later.
Where did the microorganisms which caused this “extremely rare event” come from? Many scientists think that the algae bloom originated in the Nile Delta. It became 60 miles long and four miles wide as it moved up the coast, nourished by the 40,000 cubic meters of untreated waste pouring into the sea on a daily basis from the Gaza Strip. Or it might have had a more local origin. Avner Gross, who heads the Ben-Gurion University Climate Change Laboratory, told Israel’s largest online news publication Ynet that “I currently have no other explanation except a pollution source in the southern Gaza Strip.”
This is not the first time that the destruction of Gaza’s wastewater systems has had an impact on Israel’s water supply. While Israel is able to deal with water emergencies by withdrawing water from the Sea of Galilee and reservoirs and rationing agricultural use as it is currently doing, Gaza’s residents have no such option. The Coastal Aquifer and its own water systems have been largely destroyed and Israel restricts the entry to Gaza of clean water. Now even the limited amount of water provided to Gaza by Mekorot appears to be contaminated, with algae and small worms found in water bottles.
Given the extent of the ecological damage inflicted on the Gaza Strip, the blowback to Israel from the “toxic waste of war” may be in its early stages, with much more to come.
