Fertilizer giant to pay NIS 110 million compensation for polluting Negev stream

Fertilizer company ICL said Wednesday that it had agreed to pay NIS 115 million ($33.7 million) in compensation to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and other plaintiffs in their civil class action lawsuit over a 2017 leak that caused massive pollution to the Nahal Ashalim riverbed in the Negev region.

It would be the largest amount ever paid in compensation for environmental damage in Israel. The plaintiffs had sought NIS 400 million ($117.3 million).

ICL announced the agreement in a notification to the Israeli stock market that noted the payout will not have a significant financial impact on the company. The deal still needs to be approved by the courts.

Some of the money will go toward rehabilitating the stream, where the effects of the disaster are still apparent, and to cover court fees. NIS 1.5 million ($439,744) will be used to establish an organization for local residents of Ein Tamar, Neot HaKikar, and Neve Zohar to campaign on behalf of the environment in the Judean Desert and Dead Sea area.

The compensation will be paid by out by ICL’s Rotem Amfert Negev, the company that caused the leak.

Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg said in a joint statement with the INPA that the compensation deal achieved “justice” for the public and the environment.

Zandberg said the money will be used to continue restoration operations in and around the stream, with set aside for “research and monitoring, environmental education, promoting environmental tourism and support for various environmental projects.”

Raya Shourky, director general of the Nature and Parks Authority, said rehabilitation of the stream is expected to take years.

“Extensive rehabilitation work awaits us. The compromise agreement that was signed will allow actions to be carried out in cooperation with the relevant parties, the results of which for the environment and the public will be seen in the years to come,” she said.

Shourky welcomed Amfert’s move to “take responsibility” for the disaster.

“The ‘polluter pays’ approach is very important for sending a message about the future of the environment that we are living in,” she said.

The Southern District Prosecution Office, which signed the agreement on behalf of the plaintiffs, noted that it does not prevent the Environmental Protection Ministry from seeking criminal proceedings in the case or sanctions against those responsible.

On June 23, 2017, the wall of the evaporation pond at the Rotem Amfert Negev fertilizer plant collapsed, sending 100,000 to 250,000 cubic meters (3.5 million to 8.8 million cubic feet) or more of highly toxic wastewater rushing through the Ashalim stream.

At least 13 ibex — a third of those living in the area — and numerous foxes and birds were found dead in the two weeks following the spill, according to the Environmental Protection Ministry. The leak also caused catastrophic damage to the ecology of the stream.

In the wake of the disaster, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority launched a five-year recovery monitoring program at Ashalim under the aegis of HaMaarag, the national program for assessing the state of nature in the country at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University.

The Environmental Protection Ministry’s Green Police is still conducting a criminal investigation into what caused the wall collapse and whether environmental laws were violated at the plant.

The fertilizer plant sits on the Rotem plain — a center for phosphate mining in the Negev desert southwest of the Dead Sea.

The nearby Ashalim stream, bounded by high canyon walls in many places, is a popular hiking trail and an important ecological corridor that links the Negev and Judean deserts. It was closed after the pollution leak and only reopened to the public in June 2020.

Rotem Amfert is also the subject of the biggest environmental class action suit in Israeli history, which demands that it and Dead Sea Periclase Ltd pay NIS 1.4 billion ($400 million) in damages for polluting groundwater and a popular spring and stream at the Ein Bokek nature reserve near the Dead Sea.