Details of Israel’s plan for the development of the Jordan water sources and adjoining areas, presented this week in Washington to Ambassador Eric Johnston, President Eisenhower’s special representative to the Near East, were revealed here today. The Israel plan, which provides for almost immediate settlement of the Arab refugees, is far more comprehensive than the Jordan Valley Authority plan prepared by the United States.
It is understood that the Israeli plan–known as the Cotton Plan–visualizes a construction program extending over 25 years and costing in total $470,000,000, and provides for the marshalling of the resources of the Jordan River in Israel and Jordan, the Litani River basin in Lebanon and the Yarmuk River basin in Syria and Jordan.
The Cotton Plan proposes fullest irrigation of all lands that need it in Jordan, Southern Lebanon and the Yarmuk basin of Syria, with excess water which cannot then be used in these area being allocated to Israel which, by contrast, has far more land in need of irrigation than water available for the purpose.
Where the plan drafted by American experts and pressed by Ambassador Eric Johnston–who is scheduled to visit the Near East next week–provides for the irrigation of 30,000 dunams (four dunams equal one acre) of land in Syria, nothing for Lebanon, 490,000 dunams for Jordan and 420,000 dunams for Israel, the Cotton Plan calls for:
The irrigation of 30,000 dunams for Syria, 350,000 dunams for Lebanon, 430,000 dunams for Jordan and 1,790,000 dunams for Israel. The amount for Jordan in the Israeli plan is the same as the amount in the American plan, but does not include in its specifications the area taken up by roads and built up areas which are not actually used for agricultural purposes. The Israeli plan also provides for the production of 1,400,000,000 kilowatt hours of electric power annually and would make it available early in the project rather than at the last stages, as does the Johnston JVA plan.
The Cotton Plan provides for the development program to be built in four stages. The first stage in Israel would include the diversion of the Jordan River for power generation purposes below Lake Huleh and the diversion of the major flow of the river into the main storage reservoir. In Jordan, the first stage would include diversion of a major part of the Yarmuk’s summer flow.
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