Dead Sea Drying Up, Israeli Study Warns

[ElsewheresDaughter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61687-2003Nov4.html

JERUSALEM - The Dead Sea is dying, and only a major engineering effort can save it, Israel's Minister of the Environment said Monday.

The Dead Sea gets its name from its heavy salt content, because no aquatic creatures can live in it. Now there's a new "death threat" - the Dead Sea is drying up and disappearing.

An Israeli TV reporter, illustrating the government report, stood on a spot where, just 20 years ago, water met land. Now that point is 2,000 feet of parched ground away, he said, as the sea gradually recedes.

Because it is landlocked in a hot desert area, evaporation is high, accounting for the dense salt concentration that allows bathers to float above the water with no effort. The area is popular for spas and treatments, with luxury hotels on both sides.

For millennia, the balance was maintained by the Dead Sea's only water source, the Jordan River, pouring in from the north. In recent decades, however, both Israel and Jordan have been tapping in to irrigate large swaths of agricultural land along the narrow river that divides the two countries, robbing the Dead Sea of its replacement water

more....

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

1. I want to hear

a xian fundie's take on this. I really do.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

4. it is one of the signs of the end times...that's what i have heard many

years ago

[Sinistrous]

2. That hydroelectric project proposed a while back might get a boost.

A few years ago, there were articles about digging a channel from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea, and building a hydroelectric plant on the escarpment at the Dead Sea end. I always thought that was an interesting idea, just not economically feasable.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. that building of canal from MS to DS is one of the harbingers of Armeggdon

i heard this from some fundie many many years ago (whose husband happened to be of the jewish faith)..."when the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea are joined it will be one of the signs of the end times"

[Sinistrous]

5. Oh, well, that settles it.

Of course, the true religionists have the inside track on EVERYTHING. Although, I have never heard nor read that particular "truth" before. I wonder where it is in the Bible?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

6. Zechariah.../.but hey i don't belive this crap..i have been taught that

the book of Revelation was fulfilled in 70AD...but some fundie used this as a prophecy of end times

"cause a great rift to open that will run from Jerusalem in both directions all the way to The Mediterranean Sea to the east, and The Dead Sea to the west. The Mount Of Olives, east of Jerusalem, will be split in half."

Zechariah 14:3-5
"Then The Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as when He fights on a day of battle. On that day His feet shall stand on The Mount Of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward. And the valley of my mountains shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountains shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then The Lord your God will come, and all the holy ones with Him." (Zechariah 14:3-5)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

9. Not feasible? It would pay for itself faster than you can say "NaCl"!

All that height difference! And scorching sun to empty the lake over and over! This is a GREAT idea!

[Oilwellian]

7. This is why...

Israel is so intent on tapping into Iraq's wealth of water.

[Maine Mary]

8. I've been there

It's quite amazing. I didn't know the Jordon was it's water source. No wonder the Dead Sea is drying up. I've been to the Jordan as well and in some places it's no wider then a stream.

[bikebloke]

10. Been there, too.

I was there 20 years ago. A few years ago I saw a photo of the shoreline we camped on. Much further to the water. There are also farming settlements just south of the Dead Sea. The crops are irrigated with briney water pumped out of the ground. I wonder what's happening with the water table.

[tom_paine]

11. So is Lake Foul (Powell)

So is the Caspian Sea and a lot of other places.

Which is why the Busheviks and their allies are moving to privatize and secure world water supplies.

[Occulus]

12. And here I sit

in Michigan, right smack at the heart of the world's largest supply of free-standing fresh water.

This will become a larger and larger issue in years to come, methinks.

[ozone_man]

13. Sure will be.

Watch out for those states in the SW, they might try to steal your water and pump it to the desert. What do they say about the Colorado River? It never reaches the sea?

[this_side_up]

14. I wonder how long Canada

will last before they bend over for Republicans?

All those Canadian rivers, lakes and miles and miles
of ice just waiting to be cut up and shipped south.

[htuttle]

15. A shout out from across the Lake

I'm sitting here in Wisconsin, remembering something about a Governor's conference many years ago where the region's Governor's vowed to never let the Great Lakes be tapped for irrigation in the South West (sometime in the 1980's, IIRC).

Maybe it is time to re-declare that vow soon...

[AntiCoup2K4]

16. Some believe that the Dead Sea is located where Sodom & Gomorrah were

... So if it does indeed dry up, it would be interesting if they find any traces of a really old civilization buried there. And then there's the Bible Code books, which if I'm not mistaken, claim there's something buried under the Dead Sea (on the Jordan side) which could be from God, or from aliens, that might explain a lot about where we all came from.

As far as the Dead Sea drying up being prophetic, I'm not sure about that... but if the Euphrates river dries up, start worrying.... :scared:

[bikebloke]

17. S'Dom

There is a village near the Dead Sea called S'Dom (or spelled something similiar). I'm at work, so I can't dig out my old maps -- seeing that they're buried amongst books in unmarked boxes I don't I'd want to.