Desalination of sea water will soon be undertaken in Israel on a commercial basis, Levi Eshkol, Minister of Finance, said today at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Mekoroth Water company This, is hoped, will provide a partial solution of the country’s water needs.
Meanwhile the Haifa Technion inaugurated today a new department for research in the distillation. of fresh water from the sea. It will experiment with the use of exhaust seam as a by-product of power production by steam driven turbines.
At the Mekoroth anniversary, A. Weiner, Israel’s chief water planning and operations engineer, said that if political events interfere with Israel’s plan to use Jordan water to irrigate the Negev, the steam plant at Tagbha, which is now in the construction stage, will pump Lake Tiberias waters into the Negev pipeline. The plant will cost $3,500,000.
Mr. Weiner noted that meanwhile the Jordan-Negev project had progressed to a point where about 20 percent of a 7, 000-yard-long tunnel had been constructed to carry water cross-country.
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