Posted on 12/26/2008 5:15:52 PM PST by bruinbirdman
The Dead Sea could be saved from drying up under a groundbreaking plan to flood millions of gallons of seawater in from the Red Sea more than 110 miles away.
Funding has been secured for a feasibility study into the ambitious and controversial scheme to reverse falling water levels.
The scheme involves a 110-mile long canal, dubbed 'Red To Dead', that would channel roughly five million tonnes of seawater each day into the Dead Sea.
While schemes on a similar scale have been tried before for fresh water, this is by far the most ambitious seawater canalisation programme ever envisaged.
The new water is needed to avoid the complete disappearance of the Dead Sea, an event the World Bank warns would represent "an environmental calamity".
Overuse by farmers of water from the Jordan River, the only major influx into the Dead Sea, and climate change mean the level of the Dead Sea plunges by about three feet every year.
Its surface area has shrunk by a third to just 240 square miles in the last forty years and vast areas of foreshore have been exposed, pockmarked with dangerous sink holes.
Walking along the shoreline has become a hazardous business with visitors warned away by big red signs in case they fall into any of the thousand or so hollows in the ground.
Designers believe the steady daily flow of water offers a bonanza in hydroelectric power as the Dead Sea lies roughly 1,300 ft below the Red Sea.
The flowing water could drive turbines to generate power that could be used to run a desalination plant to create drinkable water, a much needed asset in Jordan, Israel and the occupied territories.
Tension between the three parties has meant progress in the scheme has been painfully slow but planners are now
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Dead sea bailout. Or is that a bail in?
I’m so confused.
Simple f*ers just can't help themselves can they...
Better Dead than Red.
AAAAAAAARGH! IT is 26 MILES FROM THE MED!
Looks like they finally figured out a way to deal with rising sea levels from ‘global warming’.
Better DEAD than RED.
Global Drying?
Exactly what environmental calamity would that be? The Dead Sea is already...DEAD.
In other news Seattle refuses to use salt on icy roads because of the damage salt runoff might do to the Puget Sound that just happens to be saltwater.
No doubt the Obama administration will provide funding to keep canal diggers in their jobs. /sarc
It would affect tourism revenue.
Five MILLION tons of water, 1300 foot head... There is a MASSIVE hydro potential there! Definitely should use that power to desalinate the incoming water for irrigation purposes!
Better dead than red!
Couldn’t resist.
” Exactly what environmental calamity would that be? The Dead Sea is already...DEAD.”
And exactly WHY is the “World Bank” involved?
Ezekiel 47:8 Then said he unto me, These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea: which being brought forth into the sea, the waters shall be healed.
Channel some water from the Med not the Red,into the Dead.
Desalinate for agriculture using hydro plants.Farmers can keep using Jordan water,too.
This also has the upside of lowering sea levels. In fact there a many ;ow areas which could take sea water.
OBAMA will solve unemployment by creating the world’s largest bucket brigade
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