Salt, Sewage and Sinkholes: The Death of the Dead Sea | Foreign Correspondent

the lowest place on earth the dead sea is slipping away it's been the site of dramatic biblical stories and the area is still contested today this is the promised land by god to the jewish four millennia treasured for its healing powers i have skin issues and the sea when you're in it for a couple hours almost takes everything away you're flowing it feels wonderful modern day pilgrims still come to bathe in the salty mineral-rich waters every sunday we are coming here company but this natural wonder is vanishing at an alarming rate this is the symbol of what a man can do to the nature and without even knowing that he's doing it at the heart of the israeli-palestinian conflict is the land and it's diminishing water this is a crisis this is unacceptable for us in a divided region the solutions are disputed and costly who will pay the price for for this water it might take a modern day miracle to save the dead sea the dead sea is surrounded by jordan israel and the west bank it's fed by waters of the river jordan this used to be the en getty beachside resort families and tourists would stop here to enjoy the sparkling waters [Music] what are we jumping over here yeah now we're walking in to a highly dangerous site off-limits to the public you can really see it there look yeah that used to be road 90 which was a main highway in israel and you can see what is the situation now a few sinkholes at the the main road and also some on the right and on the left of this road and now there is no way to use it and this was only five years ago yeah five years ago there were trucks coming along here buses and i think that more than uh six months people are was driving here and there were holes underneath it so it was actually hollow yeah like a sponge geologist kamit ish shalom lived here for a decade studying a mysterious phenomenon sinkholes this area is the first area where the sinkholes caused a big problem here near the beach that was the first sinkholes that we found this former holiday park was abandoned when sections of it started disappearing into the ground at the end of the 80s they found here the first sinkhole and the resort was just closed immediately and how do you feel when you see this it's really scary to think that children could run here on top of nothing and and that was also main income source of engedi which they can't really use anymore as the dead sea continues to shrink car meat is shalom knows more and more sinkholes will come [Music] when the salty water of the dead sea recedes it leaves a thick underground layer of salt winter floods rush down from the mountains the fresh water saturates and dissolves that salt and huge underground caverns form when they eventually collapse sinkholes appear there are more than six thousand different sinkholes in the israeli site the resort at n getty shows how far and how fast the waters have receded people used to stop here for a swim but now the water is hundreds of meters away and the facilities have been destroyed by sinkholes and they're still forming it's uh a new one you want to hear it sure one two three four five it's still getting six it can be that is a long way down yeah it's eventually this area is going to collapse yeah yeah and the reason it's not collapsing i think it's we have lots of asphalt here and it's holding it [Music] just near engetti is a flood plain that flows into the dead sea from the geological survey of israel come here regularly to try and learn more about sinkholes good morning i'm meeting geologists italia gavrielli and gideon bear they're going to take me down the dry riverbeds to check their equipment yeah those cracks are the indication that we are approaching a sinkhole area and just beyond that sinkhole we have a camera these scientists have been studying this area for a decade especially the flash floods that rush through here and we're just now getting to our camera it is a time-lapse camera the cameras are placed all over the floodplain waiting to capture footage of these flood events every winter we get flash floods and flashlights generally used to flow directly to the dead sea but since a few sinkholes formed along the riverbed flash floods started to be swallowed into those sinkholes and dissolve the thought layer the 20 meter deep salt layer and make their way eastward towards the dead sea but underground at the beginning we really didn't know where they came out but 2012 2013 we started seeing that these waters come out in other sinkholes so we put cameras in the places where the water was swallowed and cameras where the water came out and we saw the time difference and we really saw that if you look at the water and it's totally calm and a few hours after a flash flood you can really see a vigorous spring coming out of the water full of dust full of clay that was carried by the water from the flash flood only the scientists are allowed to come here because the whole area is considered too dangerous for the public we are walking above an area which is really forming an underground cave system that's what's happening here now they test the water coming out of a sinkhole to see where it comes from that tells them how quickly the caves are forming and how big they are it matters first of all for the sake of safety the more tunnels the more dissolution the less safe it is this landscape is changing fast these giant sinkholes are only four years old when you see this sinkhole this evolved within two three years to what you see here now it's it's spectacular in landscape that developed over a few years and over time we envisioned that the entire area would be a huge sinkhole with whatever water eventually will overtake it [Music] the scientists take their samples and information back to jerusalem for testing and analysis these are samples we took together but these are all from sinkholes yeah chemical analysis of the water samples will reveal more about the cave systems like what minerals have been dissolved and how quickly that's happening the results will inform the israeli government about how the landscape is changing and how it can be safely used in the future we can give them an estimation of where the dangerous areas are and so this system is short-term prediction we also use this information to map the entire area in terms of a thing called hazard and this is used for general purposes of planning planning recreation areas planning buildings planning a new settlement even don't plan an air settlement in an area where we can tell you that it's going to be prone to sinkholes [Music] one reason the dead sea is shrinking is because humans are taking the water out it's pumped via canals to shallow evaporation ponds they've become the new home of the dead sea tourism industry but many visitors don't realize they're not swimming in the natural sea [Music] i think this place is amazing so whether it's man-made or not i think it's got a lot of history i think it's just look at what the beauty is today and how do we preserve it the water is great you can float on water because it's that sea it contains a lot of minerals and salts and that makes you float which makes everybody enjoy the water [Music] and it's make you very young nearby factories in israel and jordan are extracting valuable minerals making potash for fertilizer is big business here more than half a billion cubic metres of water is sucked out from the dead sea every year that's roughly equivalent to the volume of sydney harbour the factories pump a lot back in but the geological survey of israel says overall they're responsible for roughly a quarter of the water lost from the dead sea to understand the main cause of the dead sea's demise we have to travel north to its source for thousands of years the jordan river has carried water from the sea of galilee to the dead sea all that changed with the creation of israel in 1948 the water in the galilee was diverted to supply a growing population and to make the deserts bloom jordan and syria also take water from this area the price is a disappearing dead sea and an escalating conflict over water in the jordan valley there's a big demand for water but not enough to go around palestinian government worker siad fukaha is taking me into the west bank to his home village of kardala how does it feel to go home it's a amazing feeling to be there in your family with your family in your house that you are born in siad's family have farmed this land for generations but the lack of water restricts them most farmers living here in the west bank are palestinians they have a very big shortage of water the water located for this for this village actually is less than 50 percent of the needed water [Music] here is the greenhouse vegetables are grown in greenhouses to preserve water that's a big one you can't try it try it raw raw i'm eating a robot in jam it's full of iron by the way that tastes much much better raw than i expected i like it i like this carrot the area we have around five cubic meter per hour which is supplied by the israeli company they use it for crops agriculture and also they use it for you know household usage the demand is much more higher you need more than 12 to 15 cubic meters per hour three times as much three times as much ciad says the restrictions placed on palestinians fuel tensions with the jewish settlers who take much more water [Music] the settlers came here after israel captured and occupied the west bank in 1967 international law deems the jewish settlements illegal palestinians say their homeland and their water are being stolen it's israeli farms irrigated by palestinian water which is the water beneath our feet right now israelis are extracting it from their wells distributing it to their settlements imagine that israelis and the settlements they are swimming they are filling up their swimming pools they are consuming three times to four times of the palestinians while palestinians are facing the crisis of a drinking water this is actually this is a crisis this is unacceptable for us around 5 000 palestinians live in three farming villages in this part of the jordan valley today one family's holding an engagement party this is the man who would like to marry tomorrow and that's yeah they serve fresh lamb from the village this is monster this is the number one palestinian palestinian food what's the spice um it's the job of the woman i don't know what to do the population of these villages is growing but this area is under the full control of the israeli military they are pushing them to leave their land to leave their homes because of that they are not allowing them to have permits for reconstruction to build in new homes later we witness these tensions ourselves outside the village we see a confrontation between israeli soldiers and locals [Music] [Music] the palestinians in this village they're trying to build a new road repave the one to the school but the israeli military has come in here and stopped them they're threatening to seize the truck that's because they control everything here even what the palestinians do in their villages with their money the road is decades old and the village council got a loan to repair it there's nothing they can do to stop the soldiers seizing their equipment every day we are every day they are come here every week every month they are forbidding us to do anything no buildings no mosques no anything even water pipes we they forbid us to do that why today the fight is about a road but the underlying cause is land and water [Music] over at the israeli farms it's a different story there's plenty of water hi eric nice to meet you nice to meet you how are you it's a rainy day david elhayani runs this farm you know what is it he also heads the yeshua council which represents jewish settlers in the israeli-occupied west bank so when we came to the jordan rally we found a desert you know there's sometimes in the summer we have 52 celsius degrees we found the desert nothing was growing here so now the jordan valley is green david's family grows herbs dates flowers and vegetables for israel and export his workers are primarily palestinians the route 19 was empty now every frenzy have a new car sometimes two cars they don't get it by walking in the palestinian authority they get it because they are working with us because they get a good salary because they have the opportunity to buy the cars the opportunity to build the new houses the small number of jewish settlers here live in fenced communities guarded by the israeli military some believe god gave them this land david al-hayani lives in this hilltop settlement above a palestinian village we came here to the jordan valley to our demand community since 1983 i i'm a farmer i have three children so all of them are married and this is their children they have five and now we hope that we have more [Music] the small settlement is green and quiet there are irrigated lawns and a swimming pool although it's closed israel controls all the water in the jordan valley under a temporary agreement that was meant to expire by the end of the 1990s much more per capita goes to the jewish settlers but they don't see any inequality we pay more than them for the water more than that for the water so they can do every whenever they want but there are clearly two different ways of living here inside and outside the wire it's not just israelis and palestinians who revere these waters above the jordan valley is the ancient city of jerusalem here priests of the armenian orthodox church prepare for an important annual ritual father coryon bagdasarian is getting ready to head down to the sacred waters of the jordan river today is the feast of epiphany of the armenian church and we are getting prepared to go down to the jordan river to the baptismal site where according to the new testament uh john the baptist uh baptized the jesus christ for us it's very important especially because only the armenian church kept the tradition as it was celebrated in the 4th century by the universal christian church covert 19 restrictions mean the priests need a police escort and can only bring 50 people instead of hundreds they descend through the judean desert into the jordan valley the baptism site is on the militarized border between jordan and the palestinian territories occupied by israel access is controlled by the israeli military [Music] at the river the priests are met by their armenian counterparts in jordan across the water [Music] the patriarch blesses the river's waters and priests collect them to use in baptisms and benedictions throughout the year once the water of the river is blessed as a miraculous water and everyone that has any any kind of pains or any kind of bad feelings he can wash himself with this water and he can be healed while it's holy water for some the reality is that the source of the dead sea the jordan river is now a polluted stream all the water that makes it down this far is sewage or from springs too salty for agriculture back at the dead sea and despite the danger from the sinkholes the more intrepid are still going into the salty water it's so close to tel aviv and it's amazing when you in the metropolin and you drive one hour and you're in the desert in the lowest place on earth it's beautiful it's beautiful and we love it we're coming here very often a little bit like my own private paradise like a taste of heaven on earth it's like no man's land no one's here um it's so dangerous that like nobody really can be here sometimes it's scary like today when i was at the sinkhole like a big part of the wall just caved in and like made a mini tsunami and i was like all alone these swimming holes are only accessible because the dead sea is shrinking this place used to be underwater but the continuing decline means this area won't stay like this for long it's amazing there are proposals to pump more treated sewage into the dead sea to slow its decline or even fill the jordan river with desalinated sea water another plan called red to dead would see brine from a proposed desalination plant in jordan pumped into the sea but the project has stalled and concerns remain about its environmental impact if and when this happens we are going to impose changes on the competition on the of the lake changes that the lake have not seen for millions of years four to five millions of years then is it feasible at all to bring in hundreds and hundreds of cubic million cubic meters to the to this dead sea for them to evaporate when there is shortage of water in the region [Music] israel is now pumping some water back into this system but it's not enough neither the farmers nor the factories are proposing to take less water to help save the dead sea for the foreseeable future it's going to keep shrinking but if you look at the vast shores and mudflats and sinkholes it's a beautiful landscape these scientists accept the fate of the dead sea but they hope that people will be able to enjoy this unique place if it's organized and people are aware and well maintained then it can be a perfect tourist site i mean just imagine i always compared to yellowstone park it's extremely dangerous if you walk there on your own and not you know follow the the path and the marks same thing can should be done here can be done here it could be an amazing attraction but that means accepting a future where the dead sea will keep disappearing it's shattering shoreline extending further every year until it's a much smaller even saltier shadow of its former self [Music] it's a monument for for what people are doing without knowing what is gonna make to the area i think that when people stop the jordan river from entering the dead sea they didn't think that that will be their price for it if our children will say that they want to to save it they can't even do it because it's too late everything that happening here is because of us [Music] you

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 1,547,873

Keywords: Foreign Correspondent, Foreign Correspondent Israel, Foreign Correspondent Dead Sea, Dead Sea, dead sea documentary, dead sea floating, dead sea israel, dead sea evaporation, dead sea sinkholes, sinkholes, sinkhole jerusalem, jordan, israel, The Death of the Dead Sea, abc news australia, abc, abc news, salt sinkhole, lowest place on earth, desert sea

Id: Oqh6hGLqAG8

Length: 30min 10sec (1810 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021