Desalination - Israel's divisive answer to water shortage

Israel lies in the arid Middle-East region. Population growth and dry winters have led to a dangerous decline in the country's two main water sources: Lake Kinneret in north Israel is shrinking, while the underground water reservoirs are overused and partially contaminated. The water available to us every year is a little over a billion cubic meters, while the consumption is two billion cubic meters of water per year. The natural water sources are not providing enough. Israel's political situation makes environmental cooperation with its neighbors difficult. The small country can only depend on itself for the crucial water supply. In the past few years, it has turned to the one water resource it has a lot of. We are today one of the countries that depends on sea water desalination. I think we'll be even more dependent on desalination in the future. Desalination makes sea water drinkable by separating the water from the salt. Three desalination plants have been launched on the short Israeli coastline since 2005, and two more are currently being built. Within the next few years, desalinated sea water will provide over 40% of Israel's water supply. But it has a big drawback: the process uses a lot of energy. Environmentalist Youval Arbel says Israel should invest in rehabilitating its natural water sources, rather than in desalination. Desalination consumes very large amounts of energy, and that will lead to Israel enlarging its carbon emissions, which are already among the highest in the world. Israel committed in Copenhagen to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but it will be impossible with these desalination plants. Israel's largest sea water desalination plants purify water through a relatively energy-efficient process called reverse osmosis. Even so, environmentalists say the amount of energy Israel uses to provide its water needs is four times higher than what it was before desalination began. Sarit Caspi-Cohen points out that, in addition to energy use, desalination will change the level of salt in the sea. The reverse osmosis process used in desalination requires throwing back into the sea the brine, which is the highly concentrated salt water that you remove from the sea water. This brine water is filled with a very high concentration of salts, much higher than the natural concentration in the sea water, which changes the whole ecosystem in that area. Caspi-Cohen says desalination can endanger sea life, and even make beaches polluted and unsafe. The desalination plants are committed to monitor the toxic level of the water that is returned to the sea. Ran Amir inspects the sea and the shores for the Ministry of Environmental Defense. The oldest and biggest desalination plant has been monitoring the affect of the brine on the sea for over five years. We can't know yet how it's affecting marine biology. We'll continue to check it. Israel is a pioneer in the field of sea water desalination, and we have also become an experimental lab for the affects of the disposed brine water on the sea's environment. Amir explains that even though the brine water frequently has a reddish color, the monitoring has so far shown no significant effect on sea life. Regardless of the potential environmental risks, sea water desalination has become Israel's answer to its water shortage.