For Dead Sea, a Slow and Seemingly Inexorable Death

Chemical Extraction

From Masada, the mountaintop citadel that was fortified by Herod the Great and became a Jewish cultural icon and a symbol of the struggles of modern Israel, the view is of mud flats stretching for miles into Jordan.

"Herod built Masada overlooking the Dead Sea, but he'd turn in his grave if he could see what we've done to it," said Bromberg, the Friends of the Earth environmentalist. "You don't have to be Jesus to walk across the Dead Sea anymore."

Below Masada, the southern edge of the sea is about 15 miles north of where it used to be. From here, pumps siphon water into a six-mile canal that carries it through the mud flats to a large complex of evaporation ponds. Though marketed by Israeli hotels as the "southern basin" of the Dead Sea, the area is operated entirely by the Dead Sea Works chemical company to harvest minerals from the water. Without the pumps, the basin would soon go dry.

The evaporation process leaves a seven-inch residue of salt that settles to the bottom of the main pond every year, creating the exact opposite problem that the northern Dead Sea is facing. As the bottom rises, the water level does too, and posh Israeli hotels along the shore are building huge sand dikes in a losing fight against the floodwater.

The Sheraton hotel has had to rebuild and raise its dike three times to hold back the adjacent pond, which is now well above the hotel's swimming pool and ground floor, according to Udi Sicherman, chairman of the Dead Sea Hotel Association. The solution, he said, is a $200 million proposal to build a huge wall inside the ponds, creating a massive lagoon in front of the hotels where the water level could be controlled.

The Dead Sea Works, one of the world's leading producers of potash for fertilizer, operates an 18-mile-long maze of evaporation ponds. Discolored water that threatens to flood roads is held back by a network of dirt berms. The company's plant is a massive industrial complex surrounded by vast ponds and mountains of chemicals.

Environmentalists say that the Dead Sea Works evaporation ponds are responsible for 25 to 30 percent of the annual drop in the Dead Sea and that the company, which just had its state concession extended to 2030, is reaping a financial bonanza from the increased concentration of minerals in the water. "They are the only ones making good money. They want the water to decline," said the Environmental Ministry's Cohen.

Menachem Zinn, chief operating officer for Dead Sea Works, said the main cause of the sea's shrinkage was diversion of water from the Jordan River and other sources, not the company's evaporation ponds. He said the Dead Sea Works and industries that serve it employ about 35,000 people. The company recently completed a $70 million project to upgrade its ecological standards, he said.

"We try to keep the environment the best we can and at the same time make 3.5 million tons of potash and give so many families the ability to live from it," he said. At the Ein Gedi Spa, where Boaz Ron is watching the Dead Sea and his business dry up together, the answer is simple.

"You have to put a limit on things. If you can't put the water in, you have to stop taking it out," he said. "You need to reach a balance with nature, or the Dead Sea will become the Dry Sea."