Israel
21 C, By Abigail Klein Leichman - For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/yyjsuhzk
A
visit to the country’s largest desalination and wastewater-treatment plants
reveals smart technologies and policies to keep the water running.
Israel
has solved its water crisis! That’s a typical headline about Israel’s
world-leading smart water management and advanced water technology.
Five
years into a severe drought, it’s more accurate to say that Israel is
constantly inventing and implementing practical solutions to a problem that is
not entirely solvable.
Due to
climate change, Israel’s October-to-March rainy season has been reduced to a
handful of torrentially rainy days, causing most of the precious liquid to be
lost to runoff. The North’s waterways are no longer an abundant trickle-down
source for much of the country; the Sea of Galilee is approaching its
lowest-ever level.
Since
2005, wastewater reclamation and seawater desalination have become key in
assuring an adequate supply — 2.1 billion cubic meters annually — to Israeli
households, industry and agriculture.
Some
31 percent of irrigation water originates from wastewater treated at more than
150 plants. Treated brackish water (not as salty as seawater) is supplied from
45 plants for both agricultural and non-agricultural needs.
Sixty
to 80% of Israel’s municipal water, adjusted according to season and real-time
demand, flows from large coastal desal plants in Sorek, Ashkelon, Ashdod,
Palmachim and Hadera.
“In
2014, we thought we had enough [desalinated water] capacity, 600 million cubic
meters, that it didn’t matter how much [rain] God will supply in the winter,”
says Yaacoby, chief of staff to the CEO of Mekorot, Israel’s national water carrier. “That was a
mistake. We are lacking 100 million to 200 million cubic meters of water per
year in Israel these days.”. Two more desalination plants are to be completed
in the next few years. “Altogether, in 2025 we will be getting 1.1 billion
cubic meters of desalinated water,” Yaacoby says.
Sorek,
world’s largest desal plant
Operational
since 2013, Sorek is the largest seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in
the world. It is operated for the government by water-treatment pioneer IDE Technologies,
established in 1965 by Technion-trained scientists. IDE is now a multinational
company with 400 desal and wastewater treatment installations in more than 40
countries.
Mekorot
distributes the desalinated, quality-tested water (after essential minerals
have been re-added) to 57 municipal water utilities throughout Israel. From
Sorek, it costs about 55 cents per cubic meter; somewhat more from the other
four plants.
By
comparison, it costs 10 cents to get a cubic meter of freshwater from Israel’s
natural sources – whose supply is fast declining. In some other countries,
desalinated water costs as much as $3 per cubic meter.
Desalination
normally uses chemicals, which present an environmental problem when the brine
is discharged back to the sea. IDE uses chemical-free biological and physical
processes customized for each installation.
To
avoid harming the little fish and fish eggs that pass through the screens on
the intake pipes bringing in 40,000 cubic meters of seawater per hour, IDE is
developing “nursery” tanks where the creatures are harbored until they choose
to swim back to their habitat via rotating doors.
Wastewater
reclamation
Covering
250 acres, Shafdan is the biggest wastewater treatment plant in a country that
recycles more water (85-90%) than anywhere else. The reclaimed water, which is
close to drinking quality, is pumped to Negev farms for irrigation. Shafdan
uses biological and mechanical means to treat all sewage effluent from the Dan
(Greater Tel Aviv) region, home to approximately 250,000 to 300,000 people,
Shafdan, established in 1955, receives 470,000 cubic meters of raw sewage daily.
Reclaiming the water from this sewage supplies 140 million cubic meters to
Israeli farms annually just from this one facility.
Clouds
and leaks
Mekorot’s
WaTech runs several R&D centers that collaborate with industry and
academia. One of these centers is at Shafdan, where there is an urgent need for
more compact treatment methods in order to free up some of the valuable real
estate on which the plant sits. A variety of pilot projects will determine the
best path forward.
Cloud
seeding was once thought a promising procedure for squeezing more rain from the
skies. But experiments have been disappointing so far. Right now there is only
one small cloud-seeding experiment over the Sea of Galilee.
That
sea – actually a lake, called the Kinneret in Hebrew — today supplies a mere 50
million cubic meters of water to area villages in Israel and 50 million to
Jordan every year. There is a new plan to take desalinated seawater from the
new plants to enrich the Sea of Galilee by 2030,
More helpful in boosting available water supply is
Israel’s exceptionally low rate of leakage, he adds. In most countries, an
average of 30% of expensive treated water is lost through leakage before
reaching customers. “Israel’s leakage rate is lowest in the world, on average
7-8%,” says Yaacoby. This is partly because Israel’s distribution
infrastructure is relatively young and isn’t subject to extreme temperature
fluctuations that can burst pipes.
The
Israeli startup Utilis
is
revolutionizing leak detection, using satellite-mounted radar — developed
originally to find water on Mars and Venus — to map out where drinking water is
escaping from the system. Since 2016, Utilis technology has been employed in 27
countries including China, US and UK.
Assuring a wet future
While Israeli knowhow and technology have a well-deserved place in the world spotlight, conservation and awareness are critically important in assuring adequate and affordable water, emphasizes Oded Distel, director of Israel NewTech in the Ministry of Economy and Industry.
“Whatever we eat or wear is tightly connected to water consumption,” he says. “Every cup of coffee takes 130 liters to produce from the phase of growing the beans to our cup. A pair of jeans takes 1,320 liters. One kilogram of steak takes 15,400 liters.”
The coming generation will only have enough access to safe water if countries stop wasteful practices like flood irrigation, get leakage under control, and incentivize conservation by charging consumers the actual cost of water.
“People have long expected to get water for free, and that is a big obstacle to building sustainable systems and leads to people not getting any water or low-quality water. When people pay for something it has a value and they are motivated to use it more efficiently.”
Distel believes Israel can serve as a role model for its reliable, sustainable, centralized water system in an arid land where there is no private ownership of water and everyone gets a monthly water bill.
“The outcome is that wherever you are in Israel, when you open the tap you get high-quality drinking water, which is not something that happens everywhere in the world,” Distel says.
Click here to find out about WaterLine, Israel NewTech’s English-language podcast dealing with water issues in the global arena.
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