The Dead Sea Comes To Life
Kreiger, Barbara
barbara kreiger the dead sea comes to life to the"Blue salt laWP^I they heard a roaring noise made by the waters of the Canal, coming down from the Mediterranean through tunnels and...
...But the greatest hope is in magnesium metal, which is considered to be the metal of the future...
...Some of his ideas, particularly about the kind of growth he would like to see in the region, are controversial and are sure to be challenged if they reach the planning stage...
...Because it's the future of Israel, he answered...
...It can be secret, at least at first...
...Children should be taught about the Dead Sea while they are very young...
...and two, the climatic conditions here are so hard...
...At the moment the Arabs are afraid of Israel...
...The climate there was even more difficult than in the north, and the isolation far more complete...
...It would also mean hydroelectric energy...
...so if the people are convinced that it is our future, they will push the government to act...
...They need to dig mines, which is in itself very expensive, and when the source is exhausted, they need to dig again...
...You can see it...
...It's interesting to hear you identify yourself as a religious man, because the last time I saw you, you spoke of your extreme disapproval of the settlements on the West Bank...
...First of all, it is in our national interest to have something on the other side that will serve as a deterrent...
...Which requires steam...
...Does the Jordan River still contribute any appreciable amount of water to the Dead Sea, though it is being tapped so extensively by both Israel and Jordan...
...As soon as this is achieved, the Jordanians will no longer yearn for our destruction, because they will benefit from our existence...
...Anticipating that the tapping of the Jordan River would cause the Dead Sea to vanish from its shalBarbara Kreiger's work has appeared in Judaism and Midstream...
...It would be an industrial revolution, solving both the problems of desalination and electricity...
...I believe some of it went over indirectly, but I don't think they know exactly what we are doing, at least not at some of the critical points...
...At what stage is the tunnel idea right now...
...the Messiah is in the heart of every Jew, and he will come when the Jewish people behave in such a way that they will be worthy of the gift of history—that God has chosen us...
...And, in fact, we expect that in another five years, it will have ceased altogether to flow into the Dead Sea...
...As soon as the water is saturated, precipitation of the minerals begins...
...And what of magnesium...
...That's where the tunnel from the Mediterranean comes in...
...Everything depends on how the people of Israel regard the Dead Sea...
...Today, mainly because of research efforts in the United States and Israel, there are some forty bromine compounds— used mainly in agriculture for pesticides and fumigants, but we have also developed fire retardants, and there are applications in the field of medicine as well as in the paint and glass industries...
...only magnesium-based bricks can resist the heat...
...This alone could make the Dead Sea into one of the major sources of Israel's economic independence...
...And this is now not only being exhibited against the Arabs...
...The water on top will always be evaporating and need replacing...
...According to the law, I suppose a formal peace treaty would have to precede any formal cooperation between the two sides...
...They have to learn it...
...Israel's 1948 War of Independence left the northern plant in Jordanian hands (it was subsequently destroyed) and the southern plant cut off from the rest of the Jewish state...
...Once it was not only the largest contributor, but it was responsible for 65 percent of the replacement waters in the Dead Sea...
...But his faith in the promise of the Dead Sea—in terms of the long-range economic and moral health of Israel—is Herzlian, and his passion invigorating...
...What is your most urgent need...
...and as the ponds will be Very extensive, so will the evaporation...
...After that, production will level off, because the amount of potash produced is always a factor of the size of the evaporation area, and that can be enlarged no further...
...Everybody talks about the pushing on the buses...
...You know there are great medical possibilities here...
...Is it your technology that went to them indirectly...
...So we come back again to Herzl's vision for the Jewish state...
...Yes...
...Can you talk a bit about projections for the future, in terms of the Dead Sea Works, and also about what you see happening here in the next decades...
...And this, in my opinion, is more dangerous for the existence of Israel than Arab violence...
...What we need is general knowledge in the country...
...We don't have the money to invest in such a project...
...But nobody in the world will permit us to keep the territories...
...Our primary concern is desalination—not for drinking, as you might think, but for the 1200 cubic meters of water that we use each day in the power plant...
...But there needs to be a kind of consensus of the whole State that we have to change...
...If they were to say, all right, let's cooperate, but without its being known, and with no formal contracts, I'm sure we would agree...
...More and more ways of using bromine are being developed, and in bromine we are the richest in the world...
...We have to concentrate on industrial achievements, scientific and economic ones...
...But those very conditions— burning sun, high air pressure, little rain—all contribute to the high rate of evaporation...
...They hope to complete the dikes, the pumping station and a potash plant by 1982, and to produce by 1983 about a million tons of potash—which they've already sold...
...And this somewhat thick material must already have been channelled into a different pan where it can be be harvested for the production of the potash itself...
...But a number of workers stayed on, though production was impossible, until the road to Beersheva was opened four years later, and the Dead Sea Works was founded...
...The question is, from where will such vast quantities of waters come...
...Magnesium, for instance—we know that it rejuvenates the skin...
...At one of our meetings, after I gave my report, he looked at me, and I asked if he had any questions...
...it is being turned against ourselves, as well...
...Shlomo Drori, the head of information and public relations for the Dead Sea Works, has been connected with the company for 22 years...
...It's true that the amount of drinking water now available could accommodate only another twelve, but desalination projects would accompany growth...
...i Is there some kind of program in effect to attract young people to the > Dead Sea...
...but the broad, flat terrain was important for future growth...
...True...
...It has already destroyed the desire of Jews all over the world to come to live in this country...
...We can't let water freely flow in, as Herzl imagined...
...And third, if the rest of the Arabs see that in five or six years, Jordan can become the most industrialized country among them, because of cooperation with Israel, they might consider this a reason for real peace with us...
...So as soon as it can be produced inexpensively, it may replace aluminum, iron and steel...
...Now a pumping station near Masada pumps water as needed from the 1300 foot deep northern basin through a channel to the southern one, thus insuring that it will never go dry...
...First of all, I'll explain briefly what happens in the production of potash...
...You envision expanding industry in the direction of Arad and Dimona...
...I believe that if people are rich, they are already bad, because they are creating jealousy and hatred in those who don't have...
...Not only that—even more important, it might change the behavior of our people in Israel...
...I believe we are wasting the best of our youth, because they are our best...
...That figure has been met and passed, and it is planned to be 2.1 million tons four years from now...
...We're quite fortunate in that once we pump in the water, gravitation and the sun take over...
...This was the vision of Herzl...
...Sdom...
...Although the amount of potash in the Dead Sea water^is ten times what it is in any ocean.'it is still only one percent, and it cannot be extracted unless the percentage is increased...
...Yes, but cooperation doesn't have to be formal...
...In potash we are limited, finally, but not so with bromine...
...Because I am religious...
...He ? smiled and said, go down, and find : out yourself...
...About ten years ago, we set a goal for 1980 of 1.2 million tons of potash...
...But once they have their own industries—ones which are vital to the economy of Jordan—this will be security for Israel...
...It was by accident...
...Sometimes only because others work for them...
...And it is that very thing, along with the huge quantities of vital salts, which is turning the Dead Sea into a life-giving body of water...
...But potash is only one of the minerals that will be extracted, and further, eventually it will be the industries that convert these raw materials, and not the raw materials themselves, which will be of greatest importance...
...At that time, 1957, the Dead Sea Works was the symbol of economic failure...
...This is typical of Israel...
...And people who are fighting don't care for justice, because if they have to survive by killing somebody, then they have the feeling that there is no need to understand him...
...He founded the Palestine Potash Company that same year, and a plant was opened on the lake's northern shore...
...This is not Jewish belief...
...No, he said, just one remark...
...What is the key...
...Except that it ! was hell, because he sent me down in ! August...
...And this is not so much that all the energy requirements of Israel can be met...
...Exactly...
...Is there an alternative...
...But the Dead Sea could create a revolution in the feelings and thinking of our people...
...With water from the Mediterranean, we would reach an optimum height and then regulate it, the amount of inflow matching the amount lost through evaporation...
...A great deal...
...Desalination must be extremely expensive...
...I went down, and since then have been connected with the Dead Sea, believing in my heart that if the people of Israel, and the government, would understand the opportunity that exists in this area, we could make true not only the prophecy of Herzl, but even that of Isaiah, who prophesized that the Aravah would bloom...
...Today there are only four hotels here...
...In this closed pan, the water evaporates much more quickly than in the deep northern basin...
...What we should do instead is transport the raw materials to the places that are ideal for industry, namely, between Arad and Dimona...
...You see, he envisioned the industries on top of the mountains, not in the valley by the sea itself...
...In 1920, he returned to Palestine and immediately began the long, frustrating procedure of negotiating with the British for the rights to construct a potash plant on the northern shore of the Dead Sea...
...Electricity...
...And sometimes it's only accidentally that they become rich...
...While the rabbi of the Chabad I Chassidim sits in New York and i believes that he is a very good Jew...
...And this is very tragic, that the best of our people are being wasted in an area that there is no question in my mind we will have to give back, if we want to -or not...
...I think that in this area people can never become rich from working, so here we have a special opportunity to change the way of life in Israel...
...If they succeed in expanding their project, we'll have steam from them, and we would no longer have to desalinate...
...What drew you here...
...You can see that the government only does what it is pushed to do...
...His idea for a Zionist state was a self-sufficient one based on what it could give, not take...
...Again, it doesn't exist anyplace else in the world, such a concentration of bromine...
...the real settlements of Judaism have to be here, in those areas where Jews forget that they are Jews...
...We have enough bromine in the Dead Sea to satisfy world demands for thousands of years...
...In ten years we could have all the electricity we needed, and a few years after that, be economically independent...
...Only magnesium...
...To be a i good Jew one has to sit in Hevron...
...And if we add bromine, potash, lithium—which may be the element to replace uranium in the production of nuclear energy—then all we need is the spirit, how to find ways to exploit those minerals and build more sophisticated industries in order to turn those raw materials into products...
...Until a couple of years ago, bromine was used almost exclusively in the petrol industry to increase octane...
...Tourism could also be expanded...
...The company had a very weak beginning, almost failing in the 50s, until a vigorous new program in the 60s reversed its fortunes, and from then on it has in varying degrees thrived...
...Whatever we do here is very expensive, because we have to transport the workers and compensate them for the very difficult climatic conditions in which they work...
...Actually, magnesium is the largest mineral concentration in the Dead Sea, amounting to 24 billion tons, making it one of the largest mines in the world...
...From what I understand, it could be a number of years before the ponds have that kind of industrial capacity...
...Israel and Jordan are simply too poor in water to allow such a resource to go unused, and the tapping, for irrigation and drinking, will no doubt increase...
...I was astonished...
...they have the feeling that we want to conquer the Middle East, and our behavior contributes to that feeling...
...So I went down, and I > didn't find out a thing...
...then the demand for doing something here would come from the people...
...I had belonged for many years to the Israeli secret service, and as an official, I met from time to time with ex-generals, to report to them on certain intelligence affairs...
...What do you have to gain from cooperation...
...Even that...
...It is as strong as aluminum but only half as heavy, and it can withstand extraordinary heat...
...And this is an opportunity to change their view of Israel...
...There is one enormous primary evaporation pan of about 25,000 acres, which starts just south of Masada and ends by the southern end of Mt...
...No, not at the moment...
...One of them was General Makleff, who had been the army Chief of Staff, and was then managing director of the Dead Sea Works...
...Can we talk some about the Dead Sea Works, how minerals are extracted from the water, and what specifically it has to do with Israel's future...
...At the moment, the ponds are only experimental—but they are a success...
...i The settlements are nothing...
...we need different kinds of power stations operating in conjunction with one another...
...So I call it a tragic waste of effort and the best of our people on something that has i nothing to do with religion...
...We need to create an atmosphere in which everybody would be prepared to donate a certain amount to the project...
...I don't believe in stones and in caves and in sacred earth...
...And we can give the world, from this tiny, poor country, energy, food and the most important thing of all, moral values...
...The real front where we have to fight is not in the occupied areas...
...I met with him in May of 1980, several months before the Israeli government announced its plan to proceed with the construction of a tunnel from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea...
...You should come to the Dead Sea...
...And in carnal-lite, potash, which had already increased from one to two percent, is now 25 percent...
...Our present leaders are too inefficient...
...I couldn't understand...
...At the moment it is used only in very small amounts, for producing bricks for the kilns of steel factories...
...The proposed tunnel from the Mediterranean will not only mean an unlimited amount of water for this purpose...
...Israeli violence is a greater threat because it can destroy everything...
...Now probably the floods are the most substantial contributor, with the Jordan accounting for only 30 percent of the annual inflow...
...One, there is no life in the sea...
...Then our political problems would change, along with everything else...
...Because at the moment, I believe that the most imminent and the worst danger to us is violence, which is the result of our way of life— fighting, always, against everything, everybody, and it creates an atmosphere of a permanent struggle...
...In order to turn them into an economic reality, they need huge amounts of brackish water—salty, but not as salty as the Dead Sea water...
...As soon as we have a source of elecMoment/29 tricity which is less expensive than what others have—and this can be achieved when the solar ponds here are producing electricity on a large scale—then Israel can be the first, and maybe the only, producer of inexpensive magnesium metal...
...Take bromine, a ton of which today costs about $700...
...At the Dead Sea, we need only produce the raw materials, not the products themselves...
...Here we come to the main point...
...Today the dikes are about 24 feet above the present level of the Dead Sea...
...As soon as he convinced me, there was no question...
...I am against richness...
...But it has to be proved...
...It still contributes, but less and less each year, as more and more is being taken by the national water carriers of the two sides...
...Yes, because all of the possibilities are limited by the amount of water we can allow in, which is limited by the height of the dikes of the Dead Sea Works...
...low basin by the late 1970s, the Works constructed a system of dikes to hold the water there...
...Challenged by rival interests and plagued by British foot-dragging that would have astonished the idealistic, more romantic Herzl, he persisted for nine years until finally, in May of 1929, he was awarded the concession...
...and in medicine in the treatment of skin diseases...
...Or bromine— it is a tranquilizer...
...in all, they are doing exactly what we have done, with the considerable help of American, German and British engineers...
...Recognition of the potential down here could mark a real turning point, the start of a new way of behaving...
...Water to cool conventional power stations, perhaps a shale one—for we have shale between Sdom and Dimona—and an atomic one...
...Nobody cares for the next person...
...I hope that the solution lies in the solar ponds, where, by the way, they have already achieved temperatures which create steam...
...Is the Jordanian side of the southern basin entirely dry now...
...and this is why I expect that after a few years of failures, they will have to accept our suggestion that we cooperate—a suggestion which is 15 years old...
...Inside...
...Novomeysky was not alone in recognizing the potential of the Dead Sea, but his passion was no doubt greater than others', and his will more resolute...
...This is her first article for moment...
...because the process requires two different layers of water—a lower layer of concentrated Dead Sea brine, and an upper layer of much lighter water which would prevent the diffusion of the energy concentrated below...
...Here, as long as we have the Dead Sea in the northern basin, and the ability to pump water and control precipitation, we can go on, indefinitely, extracting minerals...
...Not for the benefit of those who are doing it...
...Of course Isaiah connected it with the coming of the Messiah, but I believe, and I am a religious man, that the Messiah doesn't have to come on a white donkey...
...At a certain point, sodium chloride—table salt— precipitates, after which another salt, carnallite, does...
...the i future of the State of Israel is here...
...Yes, but they are building a dike system very similar to ours, as well as a pumping station opposite ours...
...It's the big advantage we have over other potash industries in the world...
...It is far more profitable to sell a product than a raw material...
...the salt would destroy it in a matter of weeks...
...barbara kreiger the dead sea comes to life to the"Blue salt laWP^I they heard a roaring noise made by the waters of the Canal, coming down from the Mediterranean through tunnels and rushing tamed, was conducted into electric generators, whence it flashed through the wires all over the land, the Old-New land, making it a homeland for people who had formerly been poor and weak, hopeless and homeless...
...This is a violent country...
...The second thing is that if their industries develop in cooperation with us, then we have a chance to prove to the world and to the Arabs that the State of Israel can give, and doesn't have to take, from the Arabs...
...To him there were three fundamentals—cheap energy, via a tunnel connecting the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, mineral richness, which he knew was right here, and Jewish genius and efficiency [the last said smiling...
...I want to, but others don't...
...Theodore Herzl Altneuland, 1902 Herzl's vision remained dormant less than a decade, until, in 1911, a Jewish mining engineer named Moshe Novomeysky visited Palestine from Siberia and was seized by the idea that the vast mineral wealth of the Dead Sea might be mined in fulfillment of Herzl's prophecy...
...Once its potential is recognized, there will be no overestimating what can be done here...
...Today this is its main use, but it too is used in agriculture, for fertilizers, and as an additive in animal foods...
...How did you come to the Dead Sea...
...But bromine compounds reach prices of $5000 per ton...
...But when I came back, he I invited me to his home, and he started to explain to me what today I know—that the Dead Sea is the future of Israel...
...In 1934, the company expanded by opening a second plant at Sdom, on the southern shore...
...I asked, why should I come to the Dead Sea...
...The more water that evaporates, the higher the concentration of minerals...
...As long as they have nothing, they have nothing to lose, and this constitutes a threat to our national industries...
...But the water we get from our wells is too saline for use in a power station...
...Ordinary bricks cannot withstand the high temperatures— 15 or 16,000 degrees centigrade— that are reached in those kilns...
...You know, the Dead Sea has had many names, but this one—Dead— was derived from two things...
...He wants to be on the bus, so he pushes through...
...If we could prove what we know from experience, that people who come here nervous are relaxed after two or three days, in a world where everybody is nearly crazy—if we could prove scientifically that coming to this area means relaxation, without drugs, without doctors...
...I try all the time to convince people—and this is why I am talking day and night— that we have to create here a new way of life, one which will be based not on what we can take, but on what we can give...
...With nothing of their own, they are motivated by jealousy to destroy us...
...The difference is technology...
Vol. 6 • December 1980 • No. 1
