Last update - 00:00 21/02/2008
High hopes for rain disappoint in the north
By Eli Ashkenazi, Haaretz Correspondent
The storm earlier this week seriously disappointed environment watchers who had hoped its rains would boost the nation's water coffers. This winter's meager rainfall has done nothing to replenish shrinking Golan Heights streams or the mountain and coastal aquifers, and concern is growing again for the country's water supply. "Cute little trickles like this will not save Lake Kinneret," Yeruham Kantman, director of the Keshet Nehusha field school in Moshav Keshet on the Golan Heights, said.
Kantman and guides from the school toured the area Wednesday to examine the slow flow of the Zavitan Stream and its tributaries.
"Instead of being eight meters wide it is only one meter," Kantman said, observing one unnamed stream flowing into the Zavitan. "It's frustrating because we feel responsible for the Kinneret and and it hurts that it is so far from its uppermost limit. This year it's a hopeless cause," he said.
"Another disappointment," is how the head of stream monitoring for the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority (INPA), Hillel Glazman, described this week's storm, about which precipitation expectations had been high.
The storm resulted in a mere one-centimeter rise in the level of Lake Kinneret level since Tuesday. The waterline is now 3.43 meters below its upper "red line" level. "The water is 58 centimeters lower than it was last year and the gap is growing," Glazman said.
Glazman said the rainfall on Monday was considerable, but at night it tuned into snow in the northern Golan Heights, precluding an immediate flow of water in the Galilee highlands. The Hatzbani River was also relatively low due to the fall of snow, rather than rain, in its catchment area. "When the snow thaws some of it will flow in the streams," Glazman said.
This week's rains supplied water to streams such as Bezet, Kziv and Hilazon in the Western Galilee and Amud in the Eastern Galilee, as well as streams in the Golan and ones that flow into the Jordan River's tributaries. But the amount of water dwindled rapidly.
"It takes three days of hard rain for a strong flow, for the soil to be soaked and for the water to wash to the streams. So far this year we've only had brief rainfalls and hence a 1 cm. rise in the Kinneret. When the flow is strong the Kinneret level rises some 5 cm. a day."
Kiryat Shmona people were pleased with the powerful flow of the Ein Yahav stream, in the city's center, which filled up.
Nir Kartinger is doing a year of national service as a guide with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel in Kiryat Shmona as part of his military service with the Nahal Brigade. He was taken by the site of the stream flowing through the city, calling it "amazing," but he is well aware that come summer there will be fights over the water of the Ein Yahav spring, which feeds the stream. "Most of the water is taken from the stream in the summer and it dries up," Kartinger says.
The recent mix of warm and cold weather is more typical of March than February, Kantman notes. "A proper February needs one set of rains after another and then we get a good water flow in the streams. This has not happened this year; we haven't had to cancel a single hike in the Zavitan due to flooding. We need at least four decent rainfalls with more than 100 mm. of rain each. But right now we've had about a third of the annual average - only 250 mm. instead of 750. It's very sad," Kantman says.
"Now we must wait for the next rain, hoping it will be longer," he says.
The situation in the mountain and coastal aquifers is also worrying, especially with summer on its way. "We're in big trouble," Kantman says. "It's time to start praying - but we need more people to join us and ask for rain. It's in heaven's hands. I hope they will take pity on us up there," he says.