Behind the Headlines: Israeli Arab's Water Project May Aid Regional Cooperation

SAKHNIN, Israel, March 23 (JTA) -- As the driver of a sewage tanker emptied its contents into a pond, an older man, visibly angry, appeared among the olive trees.

"What's with all this sewage water contaminating my olives?" shouted Rashid Abu-Raya, waving his fists at the sewage container. "There is no law and no justice."

Hussein Tarabei, who is Abu-Raya's nephew, was embarrassed. The 31-year-old graduate of Israel's Technion was trying to show a visitor that Sakhnin, an Arab town of 22,000 in the Galilee, could become an environmental beacon for the Middle East.

"The idea was simple," said Tarabei, as he stood by the pond and ignored the stench. "We take the incoming fluids, separate them from the solid stuff and turn the water into perfectly good irrigation water."

In a region where water is a precious commodity and new technologies are being developed to recycle waste water for commercial use, Tarabei hopes that Arab countries will look to the cost-effective project as a model.

If so, the idea for the project, developed at an Israeli institution, could pave the way to cooperation with neighboring Arab countries on the critical issue of water resources.

Some Arab nations have already shown interest -- and a U.S. government program has contributed $2.5 million to the project, which is run by the Israeli Towns Association for Environmental Quality.

An international delegation, including representatives from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar and the Palestinian Authority visited Sakhnin in 1994. The Palestinian Hydrology Group, a non-governmental group in the self-rule areas, and water experts at Ein Shams University in Cairo have since met with Tarabei and his team, who work under the guidance of his former teachers at the Technion.

Water experts at the Technion, a technology institute in Haifa, have long favored low-tech methods for recycling polluted water because they are cheaper and can be adapted for use in neighboring countries.

"The project is perfectly suited for the Arab countries," such as Jordan and Egypt, said Tarabei, because they have more space and less economic means than Israel.

Israel has invested in costly high-tech recycling methods because the country has limited space, he said.

In Sakhnin, the sewage ends up in two sedimentation ponds northeast of the town. Bacteria that exist naturally in the sewage water initiate a process that separates the liquids from the solid waste in the ponds.

The rehabilitated water then goes into a third oxidization pond, which further purifies the water before it flows into a reservoir that becomes a source of water for irrigation. The solid stuff, left at the margins of the ponds, turns into organic manure.

"Nothing of the sewage is wasted, everything is recycled," Tarabei said.

Tarabei still has plans to complete a phase of the project that would capture the biogas that emanates from the sewage and turn it into a source of energy.

"Methane and carbon dioxide, when released, cause damage to the environment through the greenhouse effect," he said. "We will capture the gases, turn them into a source of energy on the project."

But to erect a cover over the sedimentation ponds to capture the gas requires another $1 million, he said.

While the project has yet to be replicated outside Sakhnin, Technion experts see it as an important educational tool for Israel's Arab community.

"What is beautiful about this project," said Shlomo Kimhi, "is that it becomes an environmental education center, attracting hundreds of Arab youths for studies of the environment."

In fact, environmental consciousness appears to be spreading here. Many of the hundreds of used tires covering a slope at the entrance to the recycling project have been turned into colorful flower pots.

The project itself has already shown positive results for Sakhnin's agricultural output.

At first, olive growers, who have long depended on the laws of nature for water, were reluctant to use recycled sewage water.

But some farmers who used the recycled water found that their harvests quadrupled. And whereas in the past, one had to wait for five years until an olive tree bore fruit, an irrigated tree is now loaded with olives after a year and a half. Nectarines and vineyards have also prospered.

That's important in a town where olive trees are in abundance -- and have political significance.

On March 30, 1976, Sakhnin was one of the sites for protests against government plans to expropriate Arab-owned land in the Galilee. Clashes between demonstrators and Israeli securitiy forces left six Israeli Arabs dead, three of them in Sakhnin.

The incident has been marked annually by demonstrations in Israel's Arab community, and similar events are being planned for the day, known as Land Day, next week.

After the original Land Day, Sakhnin residents planted some olive trees, believing that the Israeli government would be less likely to confiscate land on which olive groves stand.

Some olive growers, such as Tarabei's uncle, are still skeptical about using recycled water for irrigation.

"I am a religious person, and this is against the way Allah wants the trees to be irrigated," Abu-Raya said.

Tarabei reassured his uncle that he was equipped with documents by agricultural experts that the purified water was perfectly safe -- and was in accordance with Islamic law.