Nearly one-third of sewage treatment facilities in the West Bank settlements are either not up to code or not in operation, according to a state report. As a result, a third of the settlements’ sewage is continuing to pollute the environment and to endanger groundwater sources, it warns.
And what is the situation in the Arab-controlled areas of that same area?
Well, two years ago:
Palestinian sewage polluting Israel’s environment
Industrial plants in Palestinian Authority controlled areas streaming massive amounts of heavy industrial waste into Israel • Wastewater seeps below ground level polluting ground water and springs, harming the quantity and quality of drinking water.
“The Palestinian Authority has methodically committed a disgusting offense against us over a long period of time,” a senior engineer at Israel’s Water and Sewage Authority said Tuesday. “Not only have they hindered the building of sewage treatment plants, but they’ve intentionally streamed massive flows of waste into Israel’s streams and rivers.”
The engineer said that for many years now industrial plants in Palestinian Authority territory have streamed massive quantities of heavy industrial waste into Israel. Stone and marble quarries in Hebron are particularly to blame. The waste has caused serious damage to Israeli sewage treatment plants and rivers in the Negev region.
“The lives of thousands of residents of Beer Sheva and surrounding towns have become insufferable due to the sewage that gushes out to the wadis and creates stagnant pools of water which turn into breeding grounds for particularly aggressive species of mosquitoes,” said Mark Lautman, a spokesman for the Neve Noy neighborhood, which is located near the Beer Sheva Stream.
Tests carried out by Israel’s Water Authority, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and other environmental organizations reveal that many streams in Judea and Samaria have turned into channels for crude industrial waste characterized by a high concentration of pollutants.
And three months late we read:
…Israel continues to supply the Palestinians with freshwater every year, 80 percent above what was required of the country in the Oslo Accords, and if the Palestinians would recycle their sewage water as Israel does with most of its own, the Palestinian water supply would be even greater, according to the minister.
“We told Palestinians we are willing to give them all the knowledge, but they insist on using fresh water and sending us sewage,” [then Minister of the Environment Gilad] Erdan told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Wednesday. “We are giving them fresh water and getting back sewage.”
The minister was particularly worried that along with the building of the new Palestinian city of Rawabi, there will be no solutions for the household waste and sewage created in the process, and he said he has received no answers from the authorities there.
“I’ve been trying around the world to get help from places like the United Nations and the World Bank to pressure the Palestinians to cooperate because they are here to stay and we need to cooperate on basic needs – electricity, water,” the minister said. “They can have an infrastructure.”
An academic study.
So, what’s the percentage in the PA?
This Haaretz story stinks.