fbpx
 
Home / News, Videos & Publications / News / Desert & Water Research /

Is the Red Sea-Dead Sea Pipeline as Good as It Gets?

Is the Red Sea-Dead Sea Pipeline as Good as It Gets?

August 17, 2017

Desert & Water Research

The Times of Israel — A new trilateral desalination project was signed recently between Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians. The agreement includes building a pipeline connecting the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.

The pipeline, long a dream of early Zionist leaders, will supposedly help counter the Dead Sea’s rapid dropping of 1.1 to 1.2 meters [3.5 to 4 feet] every year. Some critics, however, believe the pipeline will be more of an environmental hazard than a help, and is only being pursued for its public relations value and political expediency.

Dr. Yaakov Garb

“Mega-projects such as the ‘Red-Dead’ have a tendency to become a political tool for politicians who want to show a big impact, regardless of what is actually needed on the ground,” explains Dr. Yaakov Garb, a senior lecturer in BGU’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research.

Dr. Garb cites the example of the construction of Israel’s Route 6, a major highway traversing much of the country, as an example of the power of mega-projects.

“Sustainable, long-term solutions to improving public transport would have been much more complex and diffuse,” he says. “In the face of these kinds of complexities, when you have a big, single solution of a silver bullet, it can seem easier to choose that one.”

Costing NIS 4.6 billion ($1.3 billion), the Route 6 project was a grandiose solution to Israel’s traffic problem. In Dr. Garb’s opinion, smaller, local changes like improving public transport would have helped lighten traffic jams and reduce car dependency, but with less political soundbite potential.

“It’s often the single, capital-intensive project that wins out,” says Dr. Garb, who was also one of the consultants to the World Bank study in 2011 examining the viability of the Red-Dead conveyance project. Through his research, he has come to suspect the Red-Dead pipeline project is better for making headlines than it will be for the Dead Sea.

“Often the solutions that take careful, slow thinking are the kind of things that don’t get your name in the papers, so these alternatives have much less of a chance,” he says.

Dr. Garb recommends teams tackle the problem in a “diffuse, decentralized, low-tech way that takes a lot of slow thought.”

He advises, “If you’re going to do this, take it seriously.”

Read more on The Times of Israel website >>