Israel has gone through one of the driest winters in its history, but longstanding campaign to conserve water and the familiar public messages during recent years of drought, have disappeared.
- They are taking the salt out of Galilee, the same thing Texas needs to do with the Gulf of Mexico.
- There’s more than oil in the gulf, there’s all the water we need, for drinking and fracking.
The level of the Sea of Galilee, the country’s natural water reservoir, is no longer closely tracked in news reports or the subject of anxious national discussion.
The reason: Israel has in recent years achieved a quiet water revolution through desalination.
With four plants currently in operation, all built since 2005, and a fifth slated to go into service this year, Israel is meeting much of its water needs by purifying seawater from the Mediterranean. Some 80 percent of domestic water use in Israeli cities comes from desalinated water, according to Israeli officials.