JORDAN’S RED POOL IS A WARNING SIGN OF DEAD SEA ENVIRONMENTAL RISKS
Sinkhole filled with brightly coloured water is a legacy of salt lake’s shrinkage caused by overuse of resources
Cars travelling along a road next to the Dead Sea stop for passengers to take pictures of themselves in front of a pinkish-red pool along the Jordanian shore.
When it appeared last month, speculation raged over what caused the colour of its water.
The Jordan Valley Authority investigated and discovered that it was caused by magnesium deposits.
“Test results on the red water showed a high level of magnesium. It does not pose any danger,” said Manar Al Mahasneh, secretary general of the authority.
But little attention was paid to why the pool had appeared next to the small body of water between Jordan and Israel.
It is a sinkhole, one of many that are appearing more frequently in the area – the lowest point on Earth at about 400 metres below sea level.
They wreak havoc on scarce farmland and have swallowed agricultural machinery and killed a farmer.
Despite the eye-catching colours of their water, the sinkholes are the latest signs of environmental degradation in Jordan – one of the driest countries in the world – and a legacy of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Unsustainable use of water sources – even the highly saline Dead Sea – continues unabated in Jordan, although scientists have said aquifers across the country are emptying and the salt lake might disappear this century.
Sinkholes are spreading because the Dead Sea is receding and layers of salty sediment near the shore become flushed with fresh groundwater and dissolve.
The holes were first noticed in significant numbers in the late 1980s. The Dead Sea has been shrinking since the 1960s, when the flow of the Jordan River, which empties into it, declined sharply.
The US sought a decade earlier to prevent this scenario – and reduce cross-border hostilities over water – by negotiating the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan.
Also known as the Johnston Plan – after US ambassador Eric Johnston, who between 1953 and 1955 helped develop the project – it aimed to solve water disputes between Jordan, Israel, Syria and Lebanon.
But the deal collapsed in the 1960s.
Israel, Syria and Jordan ended up diverting the Jordan River and its tributaries for their own uses, causing the water level in the Dead Sea to drop beyond its natural fluctuations. Israel took by far the largest share of the water. Syria dammed the Yarmouk River, the main tributary of the Jordan, which has since become a polluted stream.
At Ghor Al Haditha, the region most hit by sinkholes on the southern edge of the Dead Sea, farmers still grow a variety of produce, including bananas. The use of water for farming is further depleting groundwater from hills along the eastern side of the Dead Sea road.
But sinkholes are spreading in a northern direction, farmers say, limiting expansion of agriculture and affecting the roads and foundations of bridges in the area, as well as streams flowing from the hills.
Abu Alaa, a farmer in Ghor Al Haditha, considers himself lucky that his land had no sinkholes.
His property is worth about $14,000 a donum (1,000 square metres), compared with a few hundred dollars per donum for plots riddled with holes.
“The land cracks and deforms and in any moment, it could give way,” he said.
“Plots have been destroyed and others can no longer be farmed.”
He said a neighbouring farmer died after being swallowed by a sinkhole this year as he was tilling the land.
“There is no warning,” he said.
“The civil defence tried to rescue him. God rest his soul.”
Another human-caused disaster undermining the Dead Sea lies three kilometres away. It is Jordan’s potash industry and its huge evaporation ponds drawn from the shrinking lake.
EcoPeace Middle East, a regional environmental organisation, says that aside from the depletion of the Jordan River, mineral extraction on its Jordanian and Israeli shores have “contributed to the demise of the Dead Sea”.
The non-government organisation says potash ponds on both shores are responsible for up to 40 per cent of the lake’s depletion.
Some scientists estimate that the Dead Sea could disappear before the end of this century. In recent decades, it has lost a third of its surface area.
Nizar Abu Jaber, a professor of geology at the German-Jordanian University in Madaba, said the potash industry was threatened unless the imbalance between the water coming in and evaporation was solved.
During the past decade, Jordan and Israel have discussed a large-scale project to build a canal from the Red Sea to feed the Dead Sea.
The flow of water would generate electricity.
But the plan was abandoned this year over fears it would prove a white elephant that would not justify the investment needed.
“The Dead Sea has never been as low as now and this is because of the human interference in the system,” Prof Abu Jaber said.
He said Israel might feel compelled to build a canal from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea to feed it, which would be a simpler project than the abandoned “Red-Dead” scheme.
He said there had been much greater investment in the potash industry on the Israeli side.
“The problem would have to be dealt with ultimately from the Israeli side, unless they think the [effort] isn’t worth it,” he said. “I have not asked them.”
He said there was a “fatalistic aspect” to the growing crisis.
“But you can still pick tomatoes and peppers,” he said.
The Dead Sea has been shrinking since the 1960s, when the flow of the Jordan River declined sharply