Israel's Main Source of Water Faces Dire Shortage

Amiram Cohen
Haaretz
25 August 09

The Water Authority has instructed Mekorot, the national water company, to pump only 132 million cubic meters of water from Lake Kinneret this year - about one quarter of the annual average, sources in the agriculture sector said.

This would be the smallest amount pumped from the Kinneret since the National Water Carrier went into service in 1964.

The Water Authority wants to begin the coming winter with the Kinneret no lower than it was last year at that time. The level of the lake is currently about 45 centimeters lower than it was at this time last year, but it is unlikely it will maintain this level; the Water Authority predicts that the level will fall to 214.87 meters below sea level, lower than the "black line" below which the lake's pumps cannot operate properly.

Meanwhile, the Water Authority has informed farmers that they intend to decrease the water ration to farmers by only 5 million cubic meters, reducing the cutback from 100 million cubic meters to 95 million cubic meters. The allocation refers to the amount of high-quality water available to farmers from three basins: the Kinneret, the Yarkon-Taninim aquifer and the coastal aquifer.

Representatives of the agricultural sector said they were very disappointed by the authority's decision, since they say the water economy is is much better than it was predicted to be, particularly in the Galilee and the Golan Heights.

According to the organizations representing the farmers, the flow volume of the Dan Springs, which provide the Kinneret a good deal of the water channeled to the National Water Carrier, was the highest it has been for the past three years. At the beginning of August, the flow volume was 6.2 cubic meters per second, as opposed to 4.3 cubic meters per second at this time last year.

Farmers also said the reservoirs in the Golan Heights were filled almost to maximum at the end of the winter, and contain 32 million cubic meters of water.

Yoram Tamari, who holds the water portfolio for the Israel Farmers' Federation, said the decision on the cutback was made at the height of last winter, before the heavy rains at the end of February and the beginning of March, which he said led to "dramatic improvement" in the water economy.

According to Tamari, last year's average rainfall, measured at 25 survey stations throughout the country, was 490 millimeters, which according to the Water Authority's own standards, should allow it to reduce the cutback by up to 60 percent.

Agriculture Minister Shalom Simhon warned recently that the water cutback will dramatically decrease large-scale cultivation in the north and require the import of raw materials from abroad, resulting in increased unemployment.

Water Authority spokesman Uri Shor said that despite the farmers' problems, a cutback in all sectors of all the water economy was unavoidable, since "we have no guarantee what next winter will be like; it may be as dry as the four that preceded it."
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