Water from Turkey (1999)

Today's Golden Oldie is a Dry Bones cartoon done in 1999!!

Back in 1999 the question of how Israel could meet its water needs was being debated. We thought we should put all our efforts into desalination. But our staunch, stable, loyal and reliable middle eastern friend and ally, Turkey, offered to sell us the water instead. They even suggested filling giant plastic balloons with water and floating them to us. That was pretty creative idea, so I tried to come up with an even more creative alternate plan.

Just eleven years later we are now faced with an anti-western and unfriendly Turkey. If you're interested in the deal they were trying to sell us, here's the story as reported in 2001:

Israel plans water pipeline from Turkey
Mediterranean conduit could thwart serious crisis in Jewish state

"...In 1999, Turkey believed she could remedy Israel's chronic water shortage by sending enormous water-filled plastic bubbles hauled by tug boats across the Mediterranean Sea. Turkish officials claimed that they could "meet Israel's water needs several times over" and that their plan was "cheaper than desalination."

"Turkey has spent $150 million on a terminal it built at the estuary of the Manavgat River, located on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. This water would be transported to Israel in two tankers, each with a capacity of 250,000 tons, from Manavgat to an unloading terminal that would be built south of Ashkelon in Israel. The water would then be transported by a pipeline that would be built to the Neguhot reservoir south of Kiryat Gat and integrated into the national water system." -more

Fresh Water Source

The world's largest reverse osmosis desalination plant (and a target of Gazan missiles) is in the Ashkelon area. The desalination plant provides fresh water to Israel and supplies Gaza with its drinking water. The Israeli government plans to build four more plants which will make the country water independent.

The Ashkelon plant has been targeted by Gazan missiles. A Gazan missile hit would hurt Israel but would also stop all the fresh water flow to Gaza. Which, of course, gave me the idea for today's cartoon.

The story of Israel's technological advances in converting sea water to fresh drinking water probably didn't make it to your local newspaper (or the International Media for that matter) but here's a recent piece from Popular Mechanics:

"The Ashkelon Desalination Plant, which opened in 2005, converts more than 26 billion gallons of Mediterranean Sea water into fresh water for the State of Israel each year—5 to 6 percent of total demand. Ashkelon is not only the largest reverse-osmosis desalination plant in the world, it's also one of the few public plants to recover waste heat to improve efficiency and reduce costs." -more