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today as it was during the 1950s. Table 1.11 contains projections by Israel’s Water Commission regarding anticipated water demand in Israel alone. the national water carrier The initial challenge involved bridging the disparity of almost two orders of magnitude in rainfall between the water-rich Galilee in the north and the water-poor Negev in the south. Almost from the advent of Jewish settlement in Palestine, establishing a “carrier” to transfer water to arid regions was an amorphous but important part of the Zionist vision. In the 1950s, the new nation made a prodigious investment in the National Water Carrier, which since 1964 brings water from the Kinneret Lake in the north to the south of Israel as part of a national grid. wastewater reuse By that time, water managers had already approved an ambitious strategy of wastewater reuse. Israel was among the first countries to recognize the potential of recycled municipal effluents as a source of water for its citizens. As the country’s population grew exponentially, the amount of sewage produced began to exceed the carrying capacity of the existing infrastructure. Until the 1950s, it had been based largely on septic tanks, with relatively few central sewage collection systems and practically no treatment facilities. The resulting contamination of water resources, the sea, and the attendant mosquito infestation created a “push” to compliment the “pull” of creating an additional source of water for agriculture. As early as 1956, it was estimated that 150mcm of wastewater would be recycled for agricultural usage. Within 6 years, 50 projects connecting Israeli farms to municipal sewage treatment centers were up and running. By 1972, the number had climbed to some 120 projects, using 20% of all urban sewage. Today Israel recycles some 77% of its sewage, a rate far higher than in other countries. (For example, the United States only recycled 2.4% of its municipal wastes.) The 350mcm of recycled sewage contributes roughly a fifth of Israel’s total water supply. For irrigated agriculture , effluents constitute roughly half of the available water sources, and crop strategies increasingly take this into consideration. By far, the country’s largest treatment scheme is the Dan Region Wastewater Reclamation Project (Shafdan). Originally financed by a loan to the Israeli government from the World Bank during the 1970s, the plant today treats most of the alon tal 32 Table 1.11 Water supply and demand in Israel, 1998–2020 (mcm/yr) Population Surface Brackish Treated Year (million) water Groundwater water effluents Desalination Total 1998 6.0 640 1,050 140 260 10 2,100 2010 7.4 645 1,050 165 470 100 2,430 2020 8.6 660 1,075 180 565 200 2,680 sewage in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area at a high tertiary level. Some 130mcm of near-drinking-water quality are produced each year, most of it utilized by farmers in the Negev desert after it is injected into the coastal aquifer, where it undergoes an additional filtration process. There are several other large-scale wastewater treatment plants that provide agriculture with water of varying degrees, notably the Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya, and Beer Sheva facilities. From the start of wastewater reuse in Israel, there were questions raised about the quality of the recycled effluents. By 1953 the Ministry of Health recommended some of the first wastewater irrigation standards in the world, disqualifying raw sewage as an irrigation source and limiting the crops that could be grown with effluents to cotton, fodder, and produce that is not consumed raw. Subsequent epidemiological studies did not reveal any statistically significant disparities in health indicators among farmers who worked with effluents and those who did not. Recently, two major developments in wastewater reuse policy are contributing to a general upgrade in the field. These can be characterized as both quantitative and qualitative in nature. First, in response to 3 years of consecutive droughts, in 2000 Israel’s government decided to increase wastewater reuse to 500mcm by 2010 (with the present total percentage recycled being 77%). The attendant investment in sewage treatment and delivery infrastructure will expedite reductions in freshwater allocation to irrigation while preserving the scope of agriculture. It is expected that as a result of this investment, the amount of effluents available to farmers will soon provide the majority of the water utilized by agriculture. Second, to minimize environmental health risk from the increase in wastewater reuse, in 2001 the Ministry of the Environment proposed...

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