Construction Aggregates Corporation, of Chicago, today won the bid for the building of a 36-square mile lake in the Dead Sea and a long dike in connection with a project for an evaporation pond for concentration of carnallite, the material from which potash is produced. The total cost of the project will be 75 million Israeli pounds ($25,000,000). Jacob Sensibar, of Chicago, heads the firm that won the bid.
Work on the dike, according to the plans, is to be started in several weeks, and will continue on a 24-hour-a-day schedule for three years, employing at the peak of the labors a total of 1, 800 men.
In June, the Government announced, work will also be begun by the firm of Stern and Rogers, of Denver, on a new potash plant scheduled to be completed by 1966. This factory is to have an annual capacity of 400, 000 tons. The current potash producing capacity is 143, 000 tons annually, worth $6, 000, 000 in Israel’s export market.
(From Jordan it was reported today that a big underground lake has been discovered at Ain el-Faska, near the Jordanian-held part of Jerusalem, by a British team of engineers. A Jordanian Government official was reported to have said the lake could meet Jerusalem’s increasing water requirements for many years.)
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