Israel To Buy Turkish Water
Israel and Turkey signed a long-awaited but controversial water deal today. Israel will buy 50 million cubic meters of fresh water from Turkey each year for the next 20 years, at a minimum price of 70 cents per cubic meter. This is cheaper than desalinated water, but much more expensive then local water.
Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was against the deal, saying it was too expensive. Prime Minister Sharon, however, said that the importance of the deal surpasses merely the water issue, and affects the strategic relationship with Turkey. Government sources have said that not only can it be a forerunner of additional large-scale deals with Turkey, but that canceling it would be liable to push Turkey towards the Arab world.
Fifty million cubic meters is roughly equivalent to 30 centimeters of height in the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), Israel’s largest water source. For the first time in over a decade, the Kinneret is nearing its optimum level of 208.8 meters below sea level; as of this morning, it stands only 28 centimeters (11 inches) short of this level. The Water Commission has decided not to open the Deganiah Dam until the Kinneret in fact reaches its maximum – at which point, if the dam is not opened, buildings in Tiberias and Ein Gev on both sides of the Kinneret shore could be flooded.
Israeli water experts continue to bemoan the lack of a large-scale desalination system. Israel consumes some two billion cubic meters of water each year, while its water supplies are replenished at a rate of only some 1.8 billion. This produces a yearly deficit of 200 million cubic meters, or four times the amount to be purchased from Turkey.
