Local authority heads plead with government not to increase oil imports

The heads of seven southern local authorities appeal to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to allow the state European Asia Pipeline Company to unload increased amounts of crude oil at ports in Eilat on the Red Sea and Ashkelon on the Mediterranean, and pipe it overland between the two.

“We call on you at this time, a time of national emergency, to stop discussing the issue of increasing piping [of crude oil],” write the mayors of Eilat, Ashkelon, Dimona, Ramat Hanegev, Upper Arava, Mitzpe Ramon and Eilot.

The letter follows an emergency meeting Sunday hosted by the Environmental Protection Ministry at which local council heads called for continuing the “zero additional risk” policy to protect Eilat’s world renowned coral reefs from potential oil leak damage. The reefs underpin Eilat’s tourism economy.

Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman said the planned increased oil was not intended for Israel’s use, but for business, to then be shipped onwards.

Following what it said were inadequate environmental risk surveys from the EAPC for an increase in oil, the ministry in 2021, under a previous minister, Tamar Zandberg, capped oil imports at two million tons (around 14.6 million barrels) annually in an attempt to limit the chance of oil contamination.

The ministry was authorized to do so within its responsibility for issuing permits for toxic materials.

But the EAPC has pressured the government to overrule the zero additional risk policy and allow it to press ahead with a commercial deal it signed with a consortium of Israeli and United Arab Emirates businesspeople in 2020 to unload Gulf oil at its port in Eilat and pipe it overland to Ashkelon for reloading onto tankers bound for Europe.

In today’s letter, the local authority heads protest a plan to override a decision reached with the Environmental Protection Ministry in August that the EAPC would submit an up-to-date environmental risk survey within six months.

Despite promises over the years, the government has not equipped or adequately staff Eilat’s coastal protection unit to be able to deal with a major oil leak.

The Europe Asia Pipeline Company has a shoddy environmental record. Among various oil leaks, it was responsible a decade ago for the largest environmental disaster in Israel’s history when one of its pipelines ruptured, sending some 1.3 million gallons of crude oil into the Evrona Nature Reserve in southern Israel. The reserve has not yet recovered.

The EAPC said in a statement, “An inter-ministerial professional committee… has unequivocally determined that the EAPC port in Eilat should be allowed to operate fully, based on the professional opinions submitted by the ministries of Energy, Defense, Finance, Foreign Affairs, the National Security Council, and the Companies Authority. Keeping the decision of former environmental protection minister Tamar Zandberg, which was made without authority and without a professional basis, will lead to the closure of the strategic EAPC port in Eilat and harm the energy security of the State of Israel.”