Last update - 00:00 09/11/2007
T.A. threatens to sue electric company for bridge over power plant
By Zafrir Rinat
The Tel Aviv municipality is threatening to sue Israel Electric Corporation for failing to keep an agreement in which it undertook to build a pedestrian bridge crossing the Reading power station compound.
The municipal authorities claim that by not building the passage, the IEC is preventing a contiguous passage for pedestrians along the city's beaches.
They also maintain that the bridge was part of a broader deal, which allowed for the transformation of the power plant from one burning oil to one using natural gas.
"We began work on extending the promenade to the north of the station and the bridge was meant to enable a connection from the promenade to the south of the power station," Menachem Liba, director general of the municipality said on Thursday.
"The IEC is behaving as if there is no public and is delaying the completion of the passage," he charged.
The IEC rejects the claims of the municipality.
"The municipality is the one that made the linking of the power plant to gas conditional upon the construction of a bridge, and that was an illegal criterion," IEC officials said in response.
Although they did not deny the fact that the IEC had promised to build the bridge, the same officials explained that there are delays that are part of a broader planning and construction arrangements.
They also pointed to the need to raise the estimated $2 million for the building of the bridge.