"Without salt, desert awash in water"
"by Margaret Coker, Cox News Service | April 6, 2008
EILAT, Israel - Old-timers in this arid city where the desert meets the Red Sea still recall a time when ice was a luxury and residents watched their gardens bake crisp most of the year.
But ask Einav Arush, 22, about her experience with water scarcity and she cocks her head in confusion. "I don't think about water. Our city solved that problem, long ago" she says.
The solution was desalination, the process of turning seawater into fresh water by separating salty compounds and leaving pure water molecules behind.
The technology is gaining new scrutiny among policy makers in states such as Georgia, Texas, and Florida, where periodic droughts have become severe and growing cities are demanding more water.
In six decades, Eilat has grown from an army outpost to a thriving port city and resort destination. Since 1982, the local desalination plant has supplied all the city's water needs.
Situated at the southern tip of the Arava desert, Eilat has no natural fresh water supply and the barest rainfall. Tourists used to bring barrels of water with them on vacation. Residents used to launder clothes from a bucket.
Today Eilat is dotted with trees, decorated with flowerbeds and green grass and awash in swimming pools.
"We still don't have rain, but everything now looks like paradise," said Mimi Sesta, 54, whose family has owned a small beach bar for the last 30 years.
Yossi Shmaya, manager of Eilat's desalination facility, which is owned by the state's national water company, puts in bluntly: "Without the plant, there would be no town."
Ah, yes, an ISRAELI SUCCESS STORY and PARADISE!!
Sigh, the pro-Zionist, Israeli bias of AmeriKa's MSM has driven me away from them, readers. Keep reading, please...
Desalinated water makes up more than half of the freshwater used in the Middle East and North Africa, according to the International Desalination Association, a trade group. About 15 percent of Israel's usable water comes from the sea.
Saudi Arabia, which has 2,000 desalination plants, creates close to a quarter of the worldwide output of desalinated water. Israel, with 31 plants, produces 5 percent.
All sounds like a good idea, right?
Keep reading....
In Israel, desalination is as much a national security priority as a lifestyle issue.
Finding a steady supply of water has been a problem since the state's founding 60 years ago. The country's main water sources - the Jordan River, the Sea of Galilee, and underground aquifers - are all shared by its Arab neighbors. Among the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Arab peace process has been who will have the rights to these resources.
I guess that's why Israel poisoned some of the Palestinian wells back in '48, huh?
"God gave us a lot of water in the ocean and not a lot on land. With the right technology that means we can create enough water for all our needs, and for our neighbors as well," said Alon Tal, an American-born water policy analyst at the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Israel's Ben Gurion University.
Oh, look at this!!!
Not only did GOD GIVE ISRAEL the HOLY LAND, he GAVE THEM THE OCEANS, too!!!
Wow, talk about your ZIONIST ARROGANCE!!!
This is the kind of attitude that fuels my rage at these people!!!!
As for the neighbors, that means water for Gaza and the West Bank, no?
Jordan? Egypt? Lebanon? No?
Oh, it means for OTHER ISRAELI NEIGHBORS and TOWNS!!!
Oh, I SEE!!!!
So JEWS can have SWIMMING POOLS while PALESTINIANS DRINK SEWAGE!!!
Yeah, Israel won't be finding any empathy on this page until it CHANGES ITS BEHAVIOR!!!
Same with the MSM!
Desalination is not without its critics. It is not considered a green technology. It takes an enormous amount of energy to conduct the reverse osmosis necessary to create fresh water, and most plants around the world use fossil fuels for their power."
Pffffffftt!
Stuff is just like their ethanol fooley!!!
Oooooooooh, desalination HURTS THE ENVIRONMENT; however, that is HARDLY A CONCERN for the ISRAELI SUCCESS STORY and PARADISE here in the Zionist-controlled, AmeriKan MSM!!!
No, it is only a problem when it is China or India or AmeriKa or Europe and THEIR POLLUTION!!!
Or, even more conveniently, those THIRSTY SAUDI ARABS!!!!
As I close out this post I sit here in pain at the shit Sunday papers of AmeriKa.
This is PAINFUL to me now, readers!
What USED to be such a joy (at least, I thought it was a good thing, reading the newspapers) is now an EXERCISE in HEART-BREAKING PAIN!!!!
