A short but worrying news article in the Jerusalem Post prompts me to post something on the groundwater contamination situation in the Occupied Westbank. The JP stated that “National Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau said Wednesday that Israel should consider ceasing water flow to the Palestinians if they do not stop contaminating the water with sewage”.
In this valley, the towering Israel settlement of Ariel dominates the valley. In the middle lies the Palestinian town of Salfit and below is the domain of some Bedouin families and farmers. These families live literally next to open sewage. Untreated waste water from both the Israeli settlements and Salfit contaminate the valley of Salfit. One man told us how he has to cope with expensive water tankers for supply, living next to a black river created by sewage from both Salfit and Ariel.
Israel completely control the water supply and sewage management in this area. Photographer Skip Schiel has written about the area back in 2007. A proposal to build a sewage treatment plant funded by the Germans has been blocked by Israelis time and again. The result ? No treatment of any sewage water entering the valley. As quoted by Skip, according to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem, 80 factories from Ariel’s Burkan industrial zone discharge 0.81 million cubic meters of wastewater per year into nearby valleys. Israel has long prevented the building of proper sewage treatment plants in the Occupied Territories. For Landau now to accuse the Palestinians of contaminating the groundwater whilst Israel prevents and even destroys the building of sewage treatment plants in the oPt consistently, not seeing his own responsibility to the environment but threatening with ceasing water supply to Palestinians instead is simply cruel, uncompassionate and inhumane.
Source: Israel is threatening to shut down water supply to the Palestinians, From the Source Blog, 13 April 2010
