Israelis race against time to clean tons of tar from beaches
Conservationist says as much of the hardening oil from spill at sea must be cleared from coastline as possible before warm weather helps diffuse it into the sand; We still don t know what s going on under the water, says regular beachgoer
AFP |
Published: 02.22.21 , 11:44
Thousands of people were engaged in a race against time Monday to clean Israel s contaminated Mediterranean beaches after the worst oil spill in the country s history.
Tons of tar are piled up on the sand along the 160km stretch of coast that runs from Gaza in the south to Lebanon in the north; the massive cleanup operation has involved thousands of volunteers and soldiers on loan from the IDF.
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Feb. 22, 2021
Israel is likely to face a severe shortage of landfill space within a year, according to the Environmental Protection Ministry.
The ministry, which presented this information to the National Planning and Building Council last week, warned that this shortage may well lead to trash being dumped illegally.
It added that is working with the Planning Administration to find additional landfill space.
The ministry’s presentation was part of a discussion by a subcommittee of the national council on a new strategic plan for handling waste. The council has to approve the plan, which the ministry prepared.
According to the ministry’s data, existing landfills will have a severe shortage of space by the middle of next year. The main reason is that the country’s largest dump, the Efaa landfill in the Negev, has almost exhausted its capacity. Once it is full, Israel will be short of space for almost 4,000 tons of trash a day – more than half the trash produced by
Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) Israel closed all its Mediterranean beaches until further notice today, days after an offshore oil spill deposited tons of tar across more than 100 miles of coastline in what officials are calling one of the country’s worst ecological disasters.
Activists began reporting globs of black tar on Israel’s coast last week after a heavy storm. The deposits have wreaked havoc on local wildlife, and the Israeli Agriculture Ministry determined today that a dead young fin whale that washed up on a beach in southern Israel died from ingesting the viscous black liquid, according to Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster.
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel s environment reporter.
Police officers receive instructions at Nitzanim beach in southern Israel before joining volunteers to help clean up tar from an oil spill, February 22, 2021 (Menachem Fried/Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
In an extraordinary move Monday, a Haifa court slapped a seven-day gag order on the investigation into the source of a huge oil leak that has polluted Israel’s entire Mediterranean coast with tar.
The ruling by the Haifa Magistrate’s Court came at the request of the Environmental Protection Ministry, which is probing the spill. The order prohibits publishing any details that may identify suspects, vessels, relevant ports, cargo and shipping lines.