Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel s environment reporter.
Israelis protest outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem against construction of the Reindeer private power plant in the Hasharon area of central Israel , December 15, 2019. The project was canceled in October. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The National Infrastructure Committee on Monday agreed to deposit plans for a private sector gas-fired power station called Kesem, near Rosh Ha’ayin and the Arab city of Kafr Qasim in the center of the country, overriding the opposition of the ministries of energy and environmental protection, as well as municipal authorities.
It also agreed to the furthering of plans for OPC 2, an extension to an existing gas plant, in the northern coastal city of Hadera also over the opposition of local authorities.
11.01.2021
MINSK, 11 January (BelTA) – Background radiation levels in the area of the Belarusian nuclear power plant remain stable, BelTA learned from Mikhail Kovalenko, Head of the Radiation Monitoring Service of the National Center for Hydrometeorology, Radioactive Contamination Control, and Environmental Monitoring of the Belarusian Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Ministry, at a press conference on 11 January.
The official said: “There are ten automatic measuring stations around the Belarusian nuclear power plant. We receive data from them every ten minutes. The data includes gamma radiation levels and information about radionuclide content in the air. The situation in this area remained stable through 2020.”
A survey of Israeli priorities in environmental matters has found that almost three times as many people rank cleanliness in public spaces as more important than global warming. The survey, carried out for the nonprofit Clean, in conjunction with the Society for the Protection of Nature, said that two in five
Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel s environment reporter.
Trash on the shore of the Dead Sea. (Dov Greenblat, Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel)
Two in five Israelis (41 percent) rank cleanliness in public spaces as more important than clean air (27%) or the climate crisis (15%), according to a survey carried out for the nonprofit Clean, in conjunction with the Society for the Protection of Nature.
Just 9% put waste separation and recycling at the top of their list of five environmental concerns, and just 8% named wildlife extinction.
Asked to rank cleanliness in their neighborhoods, 14% were dissatisfied, compared to 38% who thought cleanliness in open spaces was bad or really bad, 46% who said it was average and 16% who judged it to be good or very good.
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Over 200 scientists from Israel and around the world are imploring the government to halt plans to turn an aging pipeline into a major means of transporting crude oil from the Persian Gulf to Southern Europe, citing concerns about the risk of an environmental disaster, which could decimate Israel’s renowned coral reefs.
“One ‘small’ malfunction or damage in one of these tankers is enough to cause a major environmental disaster,” write the signatories of a letter sent to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the ministries of Finance and Environmental Protection on Monday.
In October, the state-owned Europe-Asia Pipeline Co., formerly the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co., signed a memorandum of understanding with MED-RED Land Bridge, a joint Israeli-UAE venture, to transfer oil and oil-related products from a Red Sea terminal to the Mediterranean via Israeli territory.