Conflict Complicates Environmental Problems at the Dead Sea

01International visitors to Israel used to visit Ein Gedi, a popular beach on the Dead Sea.

02The Dead Sea is the place on Earth's surface that is farthest below sea level.

03Now, the beautiful desert area is in ruins beside the shrinking, salty lake.

04The beach has been closed to the public for five years, mainly because of the appearance of dangerous holes in the ground.

05These holes, known as sinkholes, are caused by the collapse of the surface layer.

06The beach has been closed because the drop in the sea's level has made it difficult to reach its waters.

07These environmental changes are not new.

08The Dead Sea, where Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian territory meet, has been dying for years.

09With the current conflict in the Middle East, efforts to deal with the environmental problem have disappeared, too.

10Nadav Tal of the Israel Office of EcoPeace, a non-profit group, told the French news agency AFP, Regional cooperation is the key to saving the Dead Sea.

11Tal added, Because we are living in a conflict area, there is an obstacle.

12Tal described how the sea has been declining more than one meter per year since the 1960s.

13The evaporation of the salty waters takes place partly because temperatures reach up to 50 degrees Celsius in the summer.

14The sea has also been affected by years of increasing water usage from the sea's main source, the Jordan River, and other smaller waterways which begin in Lebanon and Syria.

15Local factories also use the water to get minerals, potash, bromine, sodium chloride, and magnesium chloride, among others.

16Tal told AFP, The consequences of this water diversion is what we see around us.

17He described it as an ecological disaster, adding that the declining of the Dead Sea is a disaster for Israeli tourism.

18Efforts to deal with the Dead Sea disaster include past agreements signed by Israel and Jordan.

19But the wars taking place in Gaza and beyond have brought tensions to an all-time high.

20As a result, cross-border environmental issues are no longer getting attention.

21At Israel's environment ministry, Ohad Karni has been working on the Dead Sea issue for years.

22He said the government was looking into several solutions.

23They include building a desalination factory and making a canal from either the north or the south to deal with water shortages in the area, including the Dead Sea.

24But, he said, It doesn't make economic or environmental sense to desalinate water and bring it directly to the Dead Sea, because then it's a waste of drinking water, and the region needs more drinking water and more water for agriculture.

25Karni said that his attention was on the Israeli side.

26But, he added, We can't do it alone.

27It must be a joint effort.

28So only time will tell, and we won't do anything without an agreement together with the Jordanian side.

29Back at the Dead Sea, forty-year-old bus driver Benny is at a place where people can still visit.

30Benny was getting some winter sun at one of the warm sinkhole pools.

31He said the sea's changes were difficult.

32But everything has a plus and minus.

33Because of what is happening here, we have water spots like this one.

34I'm John Russell.

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