Economy ministry requests delay in closure of Haifa ammonia tank
Ministry asks for postponement of three months, citing severe disruption to local industry; court gave company Feb. 26 deadline
The Economy Ministry has asked for a three-month delay in the expected closure of an ammonia storage tank in Haifa amid fears it could rupture and kill tens of thousands of people.
Last week, the the Haifa Court for Local Affairs gave the Haifa Group, a fertilizer producer that operates the tank, until February 26 to remove the liquid-form chemical from its tank, located in the northern city’s Mediterranean bay. An initial ruling on February 12 had given the company until February 22 to clear out the container.
After initially signaling that it would abide by the ruling, the company filed an appeal, slamming the Haifa municipality as “demagogues” trying to “to sow fear among the public.”
The ministry’s director-general, Amir Lang, said Monday that the prompt closure would have a severe negative impact on the industry and would disrupt the operations of some 100 factories that provide various services.
In its appeal, the Haifa Group said that emptying the ammonia storage tank “will eliminate the operations of whole industrial sectors,” and deal a serious blow to the local economy.
The Haifa Municipality had said that the Haifa Group “is ignoring the court’s decision” and called on the state “to stand on the side of the residents of Haifa and the cities of Haifa Bay and not allow the Haifa Group to ridicule the residents.”
Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav called on the Haifa Group to “cease threatening” the city and its residents in a Facebook post earlier this month. It was an apparent reference to previous statements by the company regarding the economic effect the ammonia storage tank’s closure would have on the city and its environs.
The Haifa municipality submitted its petition for the closure of the ammonium facility following the publication last month of a report it commissioned that found the port city’s ammonia operations posed a serious risk to the population.
The report was also submitted to the High Court of Justice as part of a legal dispute between Haifa Group and the municipality.
If ruptured, the vast ammonia storage tank would suffocate 16,000 victims under a toxic cloud, the report said. The tank could “fall apart tomorrow morning,” the report’s author, chemistry professor Ehud Keinan, said at a press conference to release the report on January 31, held at the municipality.
“If the tank breaks apart we are talking about 16,000 fatalities,” Keinan warned.
But an even worse danger, the report said, is posed by a delivery ship carrying over 16,000 tons of ammonia that arrives at the Haifa container once a month. If its cargo were released to the air, it could kill as many as 600,000 in the bay area, according to the report.
Last year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to target Haifa’s ammonia facilities with rockets in the next conflict with Israel. He quoted an unnamed Israeli official saying that a strike on the northern city’s ammonia storage tanks would cause tens of thousands of fatalities.
Hours after Nasrallah issued the explicit threat to strike Haifa, then-environmental protection minister Avi Gabbai said he had ordered that the ammonia storage facility be moved to the Negev desert. The order was never implemented.
Keinan wrote the report along with 10 other experts. Its findings were presented to the Haifa municipality several months ago, but were only made public last month.
