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Posted on 10/03/2003 6:04:46 PM PDT by blam
The Dead Sea is dying as its dark salty waters retreat
(Filed: 04/10/2003)
Human exploitation is forcing the surface level down by three feet each year, reports David Blair
The jagged cliffs of the Judaean desert mountains, where John the Baptist wandered and Jewish fighters made their last stand at Masada, once sloped directly into the Dead Sea.
Today, many of those cliffs descend into ugly mudflats covering much of the basin marking the lowest point on Earth. For the Dead Sea is in retreat as human intervention forces the water level downwards by more than three feet per year.
Over the last 50 years, the Dead Sea has shrunk by a third and its surface has fallen 88ft, from 1,280ft below sea level to 1,368ft. At this rate of decline, the salt waters between Israel and Jordan will disappear completely within the next century.
Already, the Dead Sea's retreat has left hotels on the Israeli shore stranded, well away from the famed waters. Regular visitors are shocked by the speed of the change.
Gedrat Klaus, 55, has been visiting the Ein Gedi spa since 1991. "Every year the water level drops and you can see the extent of it," he said.
"When we first came, the water was up to here, right beside the hotel." Today, the spa finds itself becalmed almost one mile from the inland sea.
Guests hoping to float on the salty waters must either stumble across the mudflats - in temperatures approaching 40C (104F) - or travel to the beach on a rickety trolley pulled by a yellow tractor.
Ein Gedi is within sight of the arid crags of Masada, where 1,000 Jewish Zealots and their families held out against the Romans before choosing suicide over surrender in AD70.
The Dead Sea would once have lapped close to Masada. Today, a dusty plain has interposed itself between the mountain and the shore. The same is true of Qumran, on the water's north-western edge, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a cave in 1947.
Scientists have no doubt that human intervention has caused the retreat. The Dead Sea is fed by the river Jordan, 90 per cent of whose waters are diverted further upstream by Israel and Jordan.
Both countries also drain parts of the southern Dead Sea to extract minerals from its unique waters. "The demise of the Dead Sea is not a natural phenomenon. The destruction is totally man-made," said Gidon Bromberg, director of Friends of the Earth's Middle East office in Israel.
"The crisis is today. We can't wait for 10 years. We're calling on the countries involved to take action today."
Mr Bromberg said Israel and Jordan could take immediate steps to limit the decline. Much of the Jordan's waters could be reallocated to feed the Dead Sea instead of agricultural land further upstream. Both countries could stop pumping raw sewage into the mineral rich waters.
Yet the Jordan is a crucial strategic resource. Neither Israel nor Jordan is willing to relax its control over the river's flow.
Moreover, the stigma attached to Arab co-operation with Israel means no overall plan exists for the Dead Sea's conservation.
"Everyone is grabbing as much as they can, be it water or hotel development or industrial extraction," said Mr Bromberg. "We say to the countries involved, 'sit around the table and plan its future together'."
If the Dead Sea's decline is allowed to continue, the damage to the area's ecosystem will be irreparable. An intricate system of freshwater springs in the surrounding desert depends on the Dead Sea. As its waters disappear, so do these springs.
Their demise would make the Judaean desert harsher still and threaten the wildlife in a cluster of Israeli nature reserves along the sea's western edge. "There isn't a child in the world who hasn't heard of the Dead Sea," said Mr Bromberg. "It is a truly unique place".
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Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I think you're referring to the Aral Sea in Russia and the Salton Sea in California.
The Dead Sea is a salt lake that is 80 km (50 miles) wide and 10 km (6 miles) wide. It lies between Israel and Jordan."
It's more like a 1300 foot drop. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the land surface of the Earth. When you consider the gravitational potential energy that could be converted to electricity if that project were allowed to go forward, the project would be a tremendous boost to the region. By restoring the original water levels in the Dead Sea, the project could create strongly positive environmental effects.
Mono Lake, at the head of the Owens Valley, is dying because of diversion of the Sierra streams that feed it.
It won't matter when the volcano blows.
???
This doesn't make sense.
Seems to me that the freshwater springs would flow INTO the Dead Sea and not the other way around.
There IS NO Dead Sea ecosystem to damage because the Dead Sea is... well, it's DEAD, for crimeny sakes.
That's where Dominoes gets their Anchovies.
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