Israel - Pig sty ?

Established 4 years ago Zalul, is a non-profit and totally privately funded organization for the environment and conservation of the Red Sea, and now takes in projects to protect the seas and rivers of Israel.

Their website (in Israeli) detauils their work in exposing the problems of the Tel Abviv beaches and the Gershon river.

This was brought to mind when our favourite war criminal Tzipi Livni was berating poor old President Lykushenko of Byelorussia for calling a jewish village in hiscountry as a "pigsty" - a viallge which had sent 20,000 to the holocaust.

A recent UN report showed that Israel was one of the ten most polluted areas of the Mediterranean.Over half of the wastewater entering the Mediterranean Sea is untreated and they estimate that it will cost US$56 Mn. to deal with this problem alone. Zalul in their 2007 report " The State of the Sea" idebntify the official issuing ofover 100 permits allowing the discharge of 140 tons of heavy metals (Ca,Cr,Pb) 130 tons of pesticide residues, 5 tons of arsenic, 1,300 tons of ammonia and a ton of cyanide.

As if this is not enough the River Gershon is fed with untreated astes from the petrochemical and pharma industries.

Perhaps the biggest poluution is due to the Dan region Association of Towns for Treatment of sewage and Environmental issues that re-cycle water but discharge 4% as "sludge" in outfall pipes at sea, making Tel Aviv beaches unsafe for bathers.(Beware the Tel Baruch beach and parking lot - hookers on the prowl day and night)

Plans are afoot for treating the sludge with calcine to produce building blocks and one hare brained scheme by Biopetrol wants to turn the sludge into bio-fuel. This is what their website says.http://www.bio-petrol.com/

Pyrolysis and gasification offer more scope for recovering products from sewage sludge than incineration. When sludge is burnt in a modern incineration the only practical product is energy, whereas the gases, oils and solid char from pyrolysis and gasification can not only be used as fuel, but also purified and used as a feedstock for petrochemicals and other applications. Obviously, there is a growing demand for sludge management technologies capable of: 1). Meeting increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. 2.) Effectively utilizing potential for material and/or energy recovery.

Which sounds desperately like a scam, despite the august qualifications of it's supporters.

The picture is a reminder that a turd is not the only dangerous thing on a beach - a family were shelled on the beach in Gaza by the Israeli military shortly after they left on June 9th 2006 killing 9 including one whole family of 8 .