Save, don't desalinate

Conservation and improving efficiency are the first steps that should be taken to deal with Israel's water shortage. This a matter of logic: Desalination is very expensive, and thus less costly methods should be exploited first. That is how Joseph Zuback, chief technology officer of Siemens Water Technologies, has summed up his approach to the choice between water conservation and desalination. We have no reason to suspect the motives of the speaker, since Siemens is involved, among other things, in building desalination facilities.

Zuback's words were confirmed by Prof. Uri Shani, director of the Israel Water Authority, in an interview in Haaretz ("Water also flows downhill," Jan. 8). "We reduced consumption from about 110 cubic meters per person annually to 88 cubic meters," he said, referring to the government's campaign during the past half year to get urban consumers to conserve in the wake of the water shortage. That is an amazing statement: During a short period, the government's watered-down campaign, which did not include non-household consumers such as offices, schools and hotels, achieved a 20 percent reduction in per-capita water use.

The figure of 88 cubic meters of consumption per person is the same as that registered 12 years ago. Through the introduction of a moderate, intelligent and comprehensive conservation campaign in the future, we could easily bring the reduction in urban water consumption up to 25 percent, which is equivalent to 200 million cubic meters a year.

The true cost of opting for desalination, rather than pushing for conservation, was kept secret for years, and was revealed to the public only now, with the announcement of the impending 40 percent increase in the price of water. According to Shani, this increase is supposed to cover "investments in water infrastructures and desalination plants, which will cost a total of NIS 30 billion over the long term."

Here we should note that "creating" 1 cubic meter of water by conservation costs about 50 agorot, as compared to the NIS 8 needed to produce and supply the same amount of desalinated seawater. In economic terms, the savings incurred by conserving 200 million cubic meters of water, as compared to producing desalinated water, adds up to NIS 600 a year for an average family of four. The saving of 200 million cubic meters, when added to the 140 million cubic meters being produced annually by the existing desalination plants in Ashkelon and Palmahim, would effectively increase the supply of drinking water to the cities by 40 percent, and thus eliminate the need for the two additional desalination plants at Sorek and Ashdod for which tenders are being issued.

The question that must be asked is: What were the motives for rejecting the "conservation before desalination" solution back in 2002? Today it is crystal clear that if a conservation campaign had been initiated then, as was recommended, Lake Kinneret and the aquifers would be full, desalination would not even have been considered, and the unconscionable water-rate hikes would not have been imposed.

Three groups had an interest in drying up Israel's natural sources of water, thereby creating an artificial crisis that would justify the extensive construction of desalination plants. The first group was made up of the tycoons. In 2002 the water economy was one of the only industries upon which they had not yet laid their hands (today they control about 10 percent of it). The second was the agricultural lobby, which set for itself the goal of gaining control over the country's natural water sources, thereby designating desalinated water to the urban sector. The third group was the Finance Ministry, which was looking for a way to bring about the privatization of the water industry.

In contrast to the Israeli government, authorities in Australia have responded to a decade of the lowest rainfall on record for a century not with construction of desalination plants but by implementing an aggressive conservation campaign for more than a decade. Clearly, they place the welfare of the public over the interests of various pressure groups. It is still not too late to reduce the impact of the increase in water prices on the public. In order to do so we must halt the construction of the unnecessary desalination plants (and related infrastructures) in Ashdod and Sorek. In addition, the Knesset's authority to supervise the water economy must be restored. And finally, the costs already incurred by construction of redundant desalination facilities should not be shouldered by the least able to so, large families and the lower economic classes through the hiking of water prices, but rather by the state's national budget.

Peretz Darr, an engineering consultant, is a former adviser to the Water Commissioner's Office on water-scarcity management.