Ein Bokek hotels on Dead Sea facing ruin as waters rise

By Patrizia Schlosser Jul 12, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Ein Bokek, Israel - Israeli experts have warned that hotels and spas situated on the southern shores of the Dead Sea face the risk of serious flooding if immediate action is not taken to tackle rising waters.

Ironically, the shallow water in front of the hotels isn't the Dead Sea, which dried up three decades ago, but is a reservoir maintained by Dead Sea Works (DSW), a company that pumps water from the northern to the southern part of the lake, where it is evaporated to extract minerals, including bromine, potash and magnesium.

At over 400 metres below sea level, the Dead Sea is the lowest point on the face of the earth. The 700-square-kilometre lake is essentially split into two sections, the northern one which has the tourist infrastructure and the southern one, which is mainly made up of evaporation pans.

While the water levels in the northern natural section are sinking by up to one metre a year, the water is rising in the artificial southern part where most of the popular tourist hotels are to be found.

For decades, DSW has produced potash with the help of evaporation but in this process salt sinks to the bottom of the pool and raises the level of the south part of the Dead Sea.

'The water will have reached the hotels within a couple of years,' says hotelier Nehemia Ben-Porat, chairman of the Dead Sea Hotels Association.

Hotels and houses built in and around Ein Bokek and Neve Zohar are under threat, despite everyone being aware of the problem for many years. 'It was ignored by all sides. No-one wanted or wants to take responsibility for the protection of the ecosystem,' explains Karin Kloosterman, co-founder of the environmental blog Green Prophet.

Meanwhile, DSW does not feel it should take responsibility for the threat facing the hotels. 'If it wasn't for us there wouldn't be any hotels. We created the pool and the hotels came later,' says Noam Goldstein, an infrastructure manager for the company.

Not surprisingly, the hoteliers take a different stance on the issue and deny any blame. 'The company was still under state ownership when we built the hotels. We thought the government would take responsibility, which hasn't happened to date,' says Ben-Porat.

The Israeli government has taken an interest in the problem in recent years, but only as a result of pressure from Israel's High Court.

Geological experts and consecutive State Comptroller's reports have long warned that the hotels are running on borrowed time, but the options are limited. Tearing down the hotels and building new ones further away from the shore had been suggested while another idea involved the construction of a protective wall.

'No tourist is going to come here if there is a dirty mound blighting the landscape or if cranes are to be seen everywhere,' warned Ben-Porat.

Instead, it now looks like the salt deposits will be dredged from the lake, a plan that has the support of hoteliers and environmentalists alike. 'It does seem like the best solution to us too,' said Bromberg.