That’s not water.
When it rains just a bit in a desert, a trickle of water makes its way down washes like this one. The water splits into small channels, even making the wet sand look dark as seen here. But…this isn’t water. This is oil, winding its way through the landscape of the Evrona Nature Reserve in central Israel.
On December 4th, a pipeline carrying oil from Eilat at the southern tip of Israel to the city of Ashquelon on the Mediterranean coast burst while construction crews were working on it. That pipeline leaked an estimated 5 million liters (41,000 barrels) of oil onto the landscape based on current estimates, although I’ve seen those numbers revised upwards already. This spill is already one of the worst environmental disasters in Israel’s history.
This nature reserve is a desert but that doesn’t mean there’s no life. The acacia trees that you see dotting the landscape support a variety of desert species including lizards, gerbils, rare deer, some of the northernmost douma palm trees in the world, and even the “striped hyena”.Â
The spill is flowing like thick water over the landscape. It did what any other fluid on the surface would do, it flowed downhill towards the main channels. Problem is, water usually flows to these exact locations for that same reasons, meaning the most active parts of the ecosystem, the places where trees can most easily find water, are being hit the hardest.
Israel barely escaped having this disaster turn worse as last week there was a prediction of heavy rains that did not come to pass – heavy rains would have pushed the oil farther downstream into populated areas and towards the Gulf of Aquba where it could impact coral reef systems. An earthen dam was also constructed to catch some oil that did mobilize in the storms.
Park rangers are working to keep animals away from the spill site, removing food from that area, and work crews are hauling away contaminated soil, but as you can see, removing even a majority of it will not be an easy job. Furthermore, bringing in heavy, earth-moving equipment and stripping the desert of its soil would also have large environmental impacts.
It is unknown how many, if any, of the exposed acacia trees that help support this ecosystem will be able to survive.
-JBB
Image credit: Reuters/Yehuda
http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-show-israel-oil-spill-2014-12?op=1
Read more
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.630330
http://wapo.st/1DQHRLy
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