Yesterday I attended a tourguides refresher.
I got refreshed alright, actually shaken up by what I saw and learned about the industrial ventures of Israel Chemicals in the production, really mining, of phosphate and potash in the Negev Desert in the Rotem Plain, near the outlet from the Little Crater (Mahtesh Katan) and in the southern basin of the Dead Sea.
Phosphate and potash is so valuable, apparantly that it's worth tearing up mountains and moving an entire lake to extract.
Until yesterday I never knew how vast this operation is and how drastically the scenery is being altered by it.
For example, had the lake not been created by Israel Chemicals all the area south of Massada would, by now, have been dry land. Now there is a lake about 4 km long and 2 km wide with about 40 hotels, crowded with vacationers and health resorts on its shores.
The main reason for creating the lake was to extract potash and other chemicals, so tourism is only a secondary benifit of the project.
The water must be pumped because the elevation of the lake is about 30 mts higher than the Dead Sea.
This process adds about 20cm of surface area to the lake each year. Eventually, perhaps only in 5 years time the water will flood the hotels.
Now they're thinking of moving the hotels and dredging the lake, but then they don't know what to do about the salt. One idea is to throw it back into the northern basin.
They claim they're only responsible for about 20% of the cotraction of the Dead Sea.
The fact is that whether by natural causes or human activity the scenery in the Dead Sea area is changing.
After they've finished scraping the Rotem plain they're left with gigantic holes. They're very proud that they are nature conciously returning the soil they've taken out in the past and recreating, as close as is humanly possible, the original scenery that was therre before they started their mining operations.
Now they'er try to encourage tourism to their phosphate mine. They built a good road to the entrance to the small crater, Mahtesh Katan and they've made cute view points along the road with explanatios of the geological processes at work here.
I failed to be inspired by the barrennes of the rejuvenated plain with its dead looking yellow sand laid down by tractors. They're trying to recreate the nature which they've damaged but it doesn't seem to be working. Whenever we do that it looks dull and uninteresting. We'll wait and see. Their intentions seem to be good.
I still don't think it's a good idea to go ripping the natural scenery to pieces so that some people can make money. Money is ephemeral the earth is eternal. Swapping eternity for something so transitory as money doesn't appeal to me.
I got refreshed alright, actually shaken up by what I saw and learned about the industrial ventures of Israel Chemicals in the production, really mining, of phosphate and potash in the Negev Desert in the Rotem Plain, near the outlet from the Little Crater (Mahtesh Katan) and in the southern basin of the Dead Sea.
Phosphate and potash is so valuable, apparantly that it's worth tearing up mountains and moving an entire lake to extract.
Until yesterday I never knew how vast this operation is and how drastically the scenery is being altered by it.
For example, had the lake not been created by Israel Chemicals all the area south of Massada would, by now, have been dry land. Now there is a lake about 4 km long and 2 km wide with about 40 hotels, crowded with vacationers and health resorts on its shores.
The main reason for creating the lake was to extract potash and other chemicals, so tourism is only a secondary benifit of the project.
The water must be pumped because the elevation of the lake is about 30 mts higher than the Dead Sea.
This process adds about 20cm of surface area to the lake each year. Eventually, perhaps only in 5 years time the water will flood the hotels.
Now they're thinking of moving the hotels and dredging the lake, but then they don't know what to do about the salt. One idea is to throw it back into the northern basin.
They claim they're only responsible for about 20% of the cotraction of the Dead Sea.
The fact is that whether by natural causes or human activity the scenery in the Dead Sea area is changing.
After they've finished scraping the Rotem plain they're left with gigantic holes. They're very proud that they are nature conciously returning the soil they've taken out in the past and recreating, as close as is humanly possible, the original scenery that was therre before they started their mining operations.
Now they'er try to encourage tourism to their phosphate mine. They built a good road to the entrance to the small crater, Mahtesh Katan and they've made cute view points along the road with explanatios of the geological processes at work here.
I failed to be inspired by the barrennes of the rejuvenated plain with its dead looking yellow sand laid down by tractors. They're trying to recreate the nature which they've damaged but it doesn't seem to be working. Whenever we do that it looks dull and uninteresting. We'll wait and see. Their intentions seem to be good.
I still don't think it's a good idea to go ripping the natural scenery to pieces so that some people can make money. Money is ephemeral the earth is eternal. Swapping eternity for something so transitory as money doesn't appeal to me.
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