The Red will Save the Dead – Israel-Jordan Peace Canal Project

The Israel-Jordan Peace Canal project is back in news as engineering studies find it more feasible to build a canal leading water from the Red Sea through the Jordanian desert to the Dead Sea in order to save the shrinking Dead Sea waters from drying put completely. If approved, it will be reckoned as the world’s biggest desalination plant.

It was in 1885 when William Allen first proposed using the Dead Sea as a ‘new route to India’ instead of using the Suez Canal. Connecting the Red Sea to the Dead Sea was later conceived by a British military engineer as a project for hydropower generation. After considering the Mediterranean Sea as the Dead Sea’s ‘savior’ for decades – intermittently – experts are now turning to the Red Sea for replenishing Dead Sea’s shrinking waters via a would-be canal of 168 km length. The canal will save the shrinking Dead Sea from drying out completely. Currently, the water level of the Dead Sea is 420 meters below sea level and remains the lowest point on earth.

Engineering experts have suggested three main approaches to the construction of the Red Sea – Dead Sea canal: laying a buried pipeline to connect the sea; constructing a low-level tunnel; and constructing a higher-level tunnel to serve as a canal. The estimated cost of constructing the tunnel-canal system is $7 billion. For Jordan, the canal will provide plenty of water for the next four to five decades. For Israel, it will prove an invaluable means of desalinizing the Dead Sea waters. The gradient between the seas will allow the generation of hydroelectric power while the salinity gradient may also be used for power generation.

The project is feasible, as experts believe, in terms of engineering and technical details. However, the political consent of Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian authorities will be required before the project becomes a reality. The World Bank is commissioning feasibility studies for the project and it appears that a decade may pass before the project is finally commissioned.

At the moment, environmentalists are concerned about the effect of drawing large volumes of water from the Red Sea on its marine life. Large quantities of gypsum are likely to precipitate as the waters of the two seas mix together in the Dead Sea. The funding of the project also remains an issue to settle. And of course, the clock is ticking as it is estimated for the Dead Sea to dry out completely in the next 50 years!

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