Government preps new Dead Sea minerals tender, with lake’s endangered future in focus
With current mineral extraction concession ending in 2030, official says new tender to go out next year, as area around salty water body continues to degrade
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter
The government is planning to finish drafting tender documents for the extraction of minerals from the Dead Sea by the end of this year, and to issue the tender next year, five years before the current concession runs out, a Knesset committee heard Monday.
The franchise is currently held by ICL Group, formerly Israel Chemicals Ltd., a subsidiary of the Ofer family’s Israel Corporation, the country’s largest holding company.
Much of ICL’s success has been thanks to the profitability of Dead Sea Works, which extracts potassium-rich potash, a key ingredient in fertilizers.
Nationalized in 1951, the company grew out of a private potash factory established at the Dead Sea in 1930. In 1961, the Knesset granted the concern exclusive rights for the next 69 years to mine a large portion of the Dead Sea and to use much of the surrounding area for its operations. In 1997, the concern was privatized.
In 2030, the 69-year lease will expire. The new concession will be for at least 30 years.
Speaking at a meeting of the Special Knesset Committee on Youth on government activities to protect the Dead Sea for future generations, Uri Shasha, senior deputy accountant general at the Finance Ministry, refused to be drawn on a clause in the original contract that promises the existing franchisee the right of first refusal on a new concession “under terms no less favorable than those it intends to offer to any such other person.”
Questioned by committee chair Naama Lazimi (Labor), who suggested that other companies would be deterred from competing and that the tender was “all sewn up,” he agreed that the clause was “problematic,” but insisted that various ways for dealing with this were under discussion and that the clause would be “moderated.” One way to help attract competitors would be to cover the costs of the tender process, he said.
Much of the discussion revolved around the extent to which the next franchisee would be obliged to ensure that the Dead Sea is maintained at a certain water level.
That level is dropping by 1.1–1.2 meters (45–48 inches) each year and the sea (actually a terminal lake) is now half the size it was in 1976. This is thanks to human use of the sources of freshwater that once flowed into the Dead Sea and industrial pumping for potash in Israel and Jordan. The factories pump water from the Dead Sea into large ponds, where it evaporates, leaving behind salt and other minerals.
The Dead Sea hotels at Ein Bokek are located around what might appear to be the sea, but is rather a large evaporation pond.
A week ago, the same committee heard that the Jordanians were planning to build additional evaporation ponds and to pump some 50 percent more water from the sea than at present.
While Lazimi and Yesh Atid lawmaker Yorai Lahav-Hertzanu (Yesh Atid) insisted that the new franchise should include an obligation to prevent the Dead Sea from further decline, Shasha said the reasons for the Dead Sea’s demise were complex and decisions about what to do and how had to be reached at a national level.
He indicated that the next franchisee would simply be charged for the water used. He was unable to say how income from those charges might be ring-fenced to ensure it was spent on Dead Sea rehabilitation.
Over recent months, the governing coalition decided to take money from two funds intended at least partially for environmental purposes and to redirect them elsewhere.
Another major issue was taxation. Shasha said documents would be drawn up both on economic and environmental issues, and that a new and tight tax mechanism would be created that would be similar to international models.
In recent years, ICL has dragged the state to the courts on several occasions over attempts to avoid or delay certain payments.
Prof Zohar Gvirtzman, director of the Geological Survey of Israel, recommended taking a positive view of the Dead Sea area as it is today from the point of view of tourism, including geological tourism.
As it recedes, the sea has left behind a barren terrain atop a layer of salt rock and created a landscape — a geological laboratory even — within a short period that under natural circumstances would take much longer.
As freshwater from winter rains comes down the mountains and onto the previously flooded plain, it has dissolved the subterranean salt rock, opening up over 7,000 sinkholes beneath the thin crust.
To restore water levels would require adding an annual 750 million cubic meters of water, Gvirtzman said, and that will not happen.
Even if it did, the sinkholes would not disappear but would continue to open up.
“If we got to the stage of limiting the decline to half a meter rather than 1.1 meters per year, what would we gain?” he asked.
“This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything. A lot can be done to improve things for tourists and locals.”
“So rather than looking at the Dead Sea as a place of catastrophe, let’s also look at its tourism potential.”
