Israel has drawn up a secret plan for a giant desalination plant at Caesaria to supply drinking water to the Palestinian territory on the West Bank. It hopes the project in five to seven years will diminish pressure for it to grant any future Palestinian state greater access to the region's scarce supplies of fresh water, reports the New Scientist. The desalination plant would deliver water to large towns and many of the 250 villages in the West Bank that currently rely on local springs and small wells for their water.

Israel, which wants the US to fund the project, would guarantee safe passage of the water across its territory in return for an agreement that Israel can continue to take the lion's share of the waters of the West Bank. These mainly comprise underground reserves such as the western aquifer, the region's largest, cleanest and most reliable water source. Water supply is one of the few areas where cooperation between Israel and Palestine has survived the current intifada. Every day on the West Bank, Palestinian engineers help repair and maintain Israeli water pipes, and vice versa.

But Palestinian water negotiators are deeply uneasy about the plans being drawn up on their behalf, especially if they involve abandoning claims to the water beneath their feet. “We cannot do that. We don't have the money or the expertise for desalination,” Ihab Barghothi, head of water projects for the Palestinian Water Authority.

Source: New Scientist, 27 May 2004

Tags: policies & legislation, water resources management