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Let common sense flow By Gidon Bromberg Tags: water, environment  Over the past 60 years, through determination and necessity, Israel has developed into a world leader in water efficiency, particularly in the agricultural sector. Today, with Lake Kinneret at its lowest level in recorded history, and facing the crisis associated with climate change, Israel is obliged to become a world leader in water efficiency in all sectors - beginning with strategic investment to dramatically improve efficiency in the domestic sector. But efficiency cannot be the lone driving force behind national water policy - sustainability must also play a critical role. Water as a public resource provides multiple services to people and nature. Water efficiency only relates to maximizing the monetary return per unit of water utilized. Local water policy has been strictly based on efficiency considerations, which then justified the diversion of most of Israel's fresh stream water into agricultural use. But it is a market failure when we do not value healthy streams, wetlands that naturally purify water and the habitat associated with water in nature. Once rivers such as the lower Jordan had all their water diverted, it wasn't long before they also began serving as a cheap alternative for disposal of raw or partially treated sewage, turning many freshwater streams into open sewers. This devastation of our natural environment has had a direct impact on the quality of life of residents throughout the country - and on the tourism sector. At present our water economy is guided by the desire to increase supply to meet all the demand, rather than by the recognition that we live in a water-scarce region and we need to better manage the demand for water in the first place. With climate change decreasing water availability by a further 10-30 percent, the situation requires urgent political leadership - now more than ever. Advertisement For starters, in Israel, we no longer have the luxury to allow fresh water to be used for agriculture. Agriculture must become completely dependent on saline and highly treated wastewater. (A review of the heavy tariff regime on the import of agricultural produce is also required.) Likewise, it is untenable that each one of us, living in one of the most water-scarce places on earth, flushes down the toilet daily tens of liters of potable fresh water. Waterless toilets, a mixed supply of potable and non-potable water to every household, domestic rainwater-harvesting and reuse of gray water (non-toilet wastewater) would reduce our individual potable-water consumption dramatically, ideally to 30 liters per person per day, from the current level of 140. If Las Vegas can ban the use of fresh water for lawns, why can't we do it in Israel? The commercials of the Water Authority warning that "Israel is drying up" are important for public awareness of the need to conserve water, but where are the policy measures and political leadership to actually make it happen? Desalination, long touted as our only solution, is not the answer. Not only is it expensive, as compared to wise water use, as repeatedly stated by the Finance Ministry, but the technology used in it is currently dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. We need to limit desalination to 300 million cubic meters (mcm.) a year as the maximum required for domestic water security during prolonged drought periods, until renewables are available as an energy source. We are currently producing 130 mcm. of desalinated water, but the government recently approved a plan to up that level to 750 mcm., with the Water Authority calling for even further increases in production, to one billion cubic meters per annum. Suggestions, like that made by the authority, that Israel has as much water "as there is water in the Mediterranean," mislead the public and thwart efforts to advance water conservation practices. As the impact on rural incomes of climate change and the current four-year drought highlights, preventing urgently needed reform in water policy in Israel has only led to crisis management contrary to the interests of us all. The Water Authority, which is part of the Infrastructures Ministry, must free itself of the narrow interests of the farming lobby, which continues to protect rural water subsidies and fixed freshwater allocations to farmers, not to mention the even narrower interests of private-sector companies that stand to make windfall profits from rapidly expanded desalination. In the water sector, it is the Finance Ministry, which calls for higher water prices and is trying to set limits on new desalination plants, that is acting in the broader public interest of wise water use. Gidon Bromberg is the Israeli director of Friends of the Earth Middle East. He was recently selected as one of Time magazine's "Heroes of the Environment" for 2008. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Produce problems Jordan Islamists protest imports of fruit grown on 'land taken by Zionists.' Payback time? America's opponents in the Mideast: Financial crisis is divine punishment.

Read & React Austrian far-right leader Joerg Haider dies in car crash Responses: 71 Livni tells residents of Acre: Don't take law into your own hands Responses: 286 2 Arab-owned homes torched, 12 arrested in Acre violence Responses: 151 Israel grants rare entry to cancer-stricken Iranian boy Responses: 116 Mideast Muslims hail U.S. financial crisis as divine punishment Responses: 67 More Headlines 22:38 Three Jewish rioters hurt, Arab home set ablaze as Acre violence resumes 15:56 Austria far-right leader Joerg Haider dies in car accident 21:14 Mideast Muslims: U.S. financial crisis is divine punishment 19:41 Jordan Islamists protest imports of fruit grown on 'land taken by Zionists' 19:42 Finance Minister: No Israel banks will collapse in global crisis 00:32 For U.S. Jewish groups, crisis means less in donations, more needy 21:51 Palestinian farmers, settlers clash near West Bank settlement of Yitzhar 23:20 Israel grants rare entry to cancer-stricken Iranian boy 08:03 Livni tells Acre residents: Don't take law into your own hands 13:55 Fatah welcomes Hamas assent of Egypt's reconciliation plan 21:24 Sarah Palin accused of improperly firing state worker Previous Editions Select Day 10 oct 09 oct 08 oct 07 oct 06 oct 05 oct 03 oct 02 oct 01 oct 30 sep 29 sep 28 sep

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