Earth Equity News

Can Israel Find the Water It Needs? By Andrew Martin, NYTimes, August 11, 2008. "Israel is running short of water. A growing population and rising incomes have increased demand for fresh water, while a four-year drought has created what Shalom Simhon, the agriculture minister, calls 'deep water crisis'... Israel has always been considered to be at the forefront of water efficiency in agriculture. Modern drip irrigation was invented in Israel, and Israeli companies like Netafim now ship drip-irrigation systems all over the world. Israel has also aggressively pursued the use of treated sewer water for irrigation... The country plans to provide a further 200 million cubic meters of recycled sewer water and build more desalination plants to supply even more water... In the Golan Heights, Roni Kedar, 46, hopes his farm can survive long enough for a solution. As a farmer for Kibbutz Ein Zivan, which abuts the Syrian border, he has spent the last 30 years trying to conserve water while growing grapes, apples, flowers and berries. His crops are irrigated with treated sewer water and rain runoff that is captured in a nearby reservoir, which is now severely depleted. He grows plants that do not require much water and feeds them with irrigation lines that drip water directly onto a plant's roots... But because of the drought, Israeli officials have cut the kibbutz's annual quota of water... to 1 million cubic meters from 1.8 million, forcing Mr. Kedar to tear out some of his orchards and rip the fruit off of some of his apple trees, to keep the trees alive but preserve water. 'I don't even like to go there. It's a disaster,' he said, motioning toward an apple orchard where the fruit covers the ground. 'We just threw everything to the floor and hope that next year is better.'"