The Environment Ministry announced on Monday that pollution in Israel's Mediterranean waters has dropped considerably in recent years.

A ministry report released Monday shows that the quantity of pollutants that flowed into the sea between 1998 and 2004 have been reduced considerably. The quantity of toxic metals that accumulate in the food chain, such as quicksilver and cadmium, was reduced by 67 percent. The quantity of ammonia, another cause of grave pollution, was reduced by 62 percent and the quantity of phosphorus, which could cause the blooming of algae detrimental to marine environment, was reduced by 68 percent.

The ministry attributes the reduction in pollution to the enforcement of anti-marine pollution legislation and tighter supervision, as well as the redirecting of sewage pipes that had been flowing directly into the sea.

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The Environment Ministry promises that other sewage pipes of the dozens flowing into the sea will soon be redirected. However, the Dan Region Reclamation Project (DRRP), the largest pollutant of the Mediterranean, will continue pouring the region's sewage into the sea until 2010.

Rani Amir, director of the ministry's Marine and Coastal Environment Division, commended the industrial plants for their efforts to reduce the pollution they have been causing in recent years.

However, the DRRP, as well as other major pollutants such as the Agan Chemicals plant and oil refineries in Ashdod, continue to pour their sewage into the sea. An interministerial committee authorized this for lack of a solution to the disposal of waste on land.

The Gaza Strip sewage also flows into the sea and is carried away a few kilometers north to Ashkelon's beaches, where a large desalination plant is located. The plant's operators use special means to prevent the polluted water from penetrating the treated water.

The DRRP is scheduled to stop pouring sewage sludge into the sea by 2010. Amir says the pollution caused by other plants will also decrease, following the completion of more advanced facilities for sewage treatment in Agan Chemicals and Oil Refineries.

Nahariya residents have become accustomed to bathing in their own sewage, which has been flowing off the town's beaches into the Mediterranean Sea for years. However, a recently built wastewater reclamation plant now directs the town's sewage to agricultural irrigation.

Despite the reduction of pollution flowing into the sea, there are still severely polluted beaches and effluents. Barak Herut, director general of the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research (IOLR), and Amir said this pollution had been around for decades.

"It takes the sea time to clean itself up," says Amir. Herut cited as an example the toxic ship paint TBT, whose use has been prohibited. The dangerous substance is still detected in inspections in ports and marinas but in increasingly smaller quantities.