Blue Peace: Red Sea-Dead Sea Pipeline Plan Signed
I srael, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority signed trilateral Red Sea-Dead Sea pipeline plan on Dec. 9 t h 2013, at the headquarters of the World Bank. The ambitious and contested project aims to replenish the rapidly shrinking Dead Sea by transferring in water from the Red Sea along a 110-mile (180 km long) pipeline. The pipeline will channel 100 million cubic meters of water per annum northward from the Red Sea and will cost an estimated $300-400 million. A BOT tender for the project will be published in 2014. The pipeline will take an estimated three years to complete. The inflow of water from the Red Sea will slow the drying up of the Dead Sea and its concomitant negative effects. Israel's energy and infrastructure minister, Silvan Shalom, said it was "a historic agreement that realises a dream of many years... [and] is of the highest diplomatic, economic, environmental and strategic importance." He and the Palestinian and Jordanian water ministers, ...