Red-Dead canal

[BLACKEAGLE]

The Red Sea–Dead Sea Conduit (Canal) (sometimes called the Two Seas Canal) is a proposed conduit (pipes and brine canal) which would run from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. It will provide potable water to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, bring sea water to stabilise the Dead Sea water level and generate electricity to support the energy needs of the project. This proposal has a role in plans to create institutions for economic cooperation between Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians, in the Dead Sea and through the Peace Valley plan.

The water level in Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of more than one metre per year, and its surface area has shrunk by about 30% in the last 20 years. This is largely due to the diversion of about 90% of the water volume in the Jordan River. In the early 1960s, the river moved 1.5 billion cubic metres of water every year from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. But dams, canals and pumping stations built by Israel, Jordan and Syria to divert water for crops and drinking have reduced the flow to about 100 million cubic metres a year (MCM/yr) (mainly brackish water and sewage). The decline of the Dead Sea level is creating major environmental problems in: the creation of sink holes that endanger structures, plantations and roads; receding sea shores and the creation of ugly mud planes; and other effects on the environment and the flora and fauna of the region. The World Bank Study estimated the intangibles benefits of the removal of the environmental problems associated with the decline in the sea water level as about US$ 31 billion.

Other routes for a conduit (canal and tunnel) for the same objectives of the Red - Dead Conduit, the Mediterranean–Dead Sea Canal, has been proposed in Israel in the 1980s, but was discarded due to high investment costs and the reliance on the energy objective. Recently the idea has been revived. Another route (pipeline, tunnel and canal) was proposed from The Mediterranean to the Dead Sea through the Beit Shean and the Jordan Valley. Other alternatives to address the Jordan River and the Dead Sea problems have been suggested among them the renewal of the flow of water in the Jordan River through the use of desalination and changes in the water policies of the riparian of the Jordan River.

Project features and benefits

The proposed conveyance would pump seawater 230 m uphill from the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba through the Arabah (Arava) valley in Jordan, then flow down by gravity through multiple pipelines to the Dead Sea, followed by a drop through a penstock to the level of the Dead Sea near its shore and an open Canal to the Sea itself, which lies about 420 m below sea level. The project will consist of about 225 km of seawater and brine conveyance pipelines parallel to the Arabah valley in Jordan. It would also consist of about 178 km of freshwater conveyance pipelines to Amman. It includes water desalination plants and a hydropower plants. In its ultimate phase it would provide 850 million cubic m of freshwater per year. It would require electric generating capacity from the Jordanian grid and would provide electricity through hydropower, making the project a large net energy user. The net energy demand would have to be satisfied through power projects whose costs is not included in the project costs. Jordan plans to build a nuclear reactor which may supply these power needs.

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

Jordan plans own Red-Dead canal without Israel

According to the Boston Herald and The Jordan Times, Jordan will pursue the long-talked about canal project between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea without Israel. According to news reports, Jordan declared its intention this past Sunday at the 2009 World Economic Forum in the Middle East, held at the Dead Sea in Jordan. The original plan had called for Jordan to cooperate with Israel on the canal and the World Bank was in the midst of assessing the feasibility of the joint project. Now that Jordan has decided to go it alone, it has dubbed its project “Jordan National Red Sea Water Development Project” in order to differentiate it from the original “Red-Dead Canal” proposal.



The purpose behind the project is two-fold. The first is to provide desalinated water to one of the most parched regions of the world. Red Sea water will be channeled through pipelines to a desalination facility that, using the elevation difference between the Red Sea (at sea level) and the Dead Sea (approximately 400 meters below sea level), is expected to provide 120 mcm of fresh water annually by 2014, and eventually at full capacity, as much as 700 mcm. The second rationale for the project is to revive the “dying” Dead Sea, which over the past 20 or 30 years, has lost about one-third of its area and dropped more than 30 meters. The Sea has been desiccated for the same reasons that the Aral Sea has been drying out (see my prior post on the Aral Sea) – because of Israeli and Jordanian upstream diversions from the Jordan River (the Dead Sea’s principle source of water) that have reduced the river’s inflow to as little as five percent of natural historical natural flows (check out the website and Photo Album of Friends of the Earth Middle East on the Dead Sea). The idea is to take the salts removed in the desalination process and pump them back into the remaining waters used to fill the heavily saline Dead Sea (10 times the salinity of sea water).



That Jordan is going it alone may not be much of a surprise. Jordan has been frustrated with environmentalists in Israel who have long challenged the plan as an environmentally destructive plan. They cite the different chemistries of Red Sea and Dead Sea water and the potential alteration of the chemical makeup that makes the Dead Sea so distinctive as well as the possible impact on currents in the Red Sea that could threaten the Red Sea’s unique coral life (see, for example, the campaign of Friends of the Earth Middle East). Without the obstacles of the Israeli environmentalists, Jordan, which only has a nascent environmental movement, can move forward at its own whim.



Of course, a critical question will be whether Jordan can secure the necessary funds for the project, which is expected to cost around $5-$10 billion and to take 30 years to complete. Without Israel and in the context of a peace initiative (some have dubbed the original Red-Dead Canal project as the “Peace Canal&#8221, that may be difficult. But that may be part of Jordan’s strategy to overcome the environmental opposition and pressure Israel to commit to the plan. And Jordan’s tactic may be working. Not long after Jordan’s announced its intentions to move forward with its own plan, Israel’s Water Authority expressed its hope that a cooperative arrangement could yet be achieved. And Israel certainly has good reasons to want to take part in this project – while the majority of the benefits from a Red-Dead canal will accrue to Jordan, Israel would still benefit considerably from fresh water in its Arava Valley, as well as a revived Dead Sea. According to the news reports, Jordan does not intend its new canal to replace the Red-Dead Canal Project. Would that allow for the possibility of two canals? Highly unlikely.

 

[BLACKEAGLE]

‘Red-Dead project studies ready’

AMMAN — The Red Sea-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project’s economic feasibility study and environmental and social impact assessment have been completed and the results will be announced next month, a government official said on Saturday.

The findings of the World Bank-led studies will determine whether and how the stakeholders, including the three beneficiary parties (Jordan, Israel and Palestine) will proceed with the project, which entails pumping one billion cubic metres of water annually from the Red Sea into the rapidly depleting Dead Sea.

"The two main studies and the three sub-studies were completed and the results are ready. The World Bank is scheduled to announce them in June," Ministry of Water and Irrigation Spokesperson and Assistant Secretary General Adnan Zu'bi told The Jordan Times over the phone.

The World Bank will meet with project beneficiaries and submit the results, Zu'bi added.

Another source at the ministry said the meeting will be "most likely be held in Israel", noting that project beneficiaries will evaluate the results and decide on whether and how to move forward with the venture.

The Red-Dead water conveyance project seeks to halt the continuous decline of the Dead Sea water level and provide potable water to the three stakeholders, according to the World Bank.

The two studies were launched in May 2008 to review the scheme’s economic feasibility and its impact on ecosystems, and on the Red Sea and Dead Sea water.

The studies were implemented by international consulting companies and panels of experts in various fields.

They include the Red Sea Modelling Study, which examined the impact of the scheme on the physical, chemical and biological makeup of the Red Sea, and the Dead Sea Modelling Study, which scrutinised the effect of the project on the Dead Sea and its surroundings, mainly on water quality.

The third sub-study examined alternatives, such as transferring water from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea or water from Turkey. Taking no action was another alternative, and what would happen to the Dead Sea in that case, according to the World Bank.

The Red-Dead project is part of international efforts to save the Dead Sea, which has been shrinking at the rate of one metre per year, largely due to the diversion of water from the Jordan River for agricultural and industrial use.

Over the past two decades alone, the Dead Sea level plunged more than 30 metres, with experts warning that it could dry up within the next 50 years.

The project aims to raise water levels in the shrinking lake from 408 metres to 315 metres below sea level.

 

[al-Hasani]

That's a huge project! I hope that it will be a significant success since our Palestinian and Jordanian brothers and sisters could use this project a lot for their future development and independence.