End Baptisms in Polluted Jordan River, Says Environmental Group
Terrasanta.net | July 27, 2010
A tract of Jordan River. (photo: J. Kraj)
(Milan/e.p.) - An environmental group has said the once broad Jordan River is now little more than a polluted stream that could die next year unless the decay is halted, and that pollution has reached such a dangerous level that baptisms in the river should be halted.
In a July 21st statement, Friends of the Earth Middle East said it was calling on regional authorities “to halt baptism in the lower Jordan River until water quality standards for tourism activities there are met."
It followed media reports that Israel's health ministry had urged the tourism ministry to stop people bathing in the river, saying it posed a health risk.
In recent years the flow of the river has slowed to a dirty trickle as fresh water running into the river has been replaced with sewage. Warnings of high pollution levels date back to at least 2007.
"Sadly, the lower Jordan River has long suffered from severe mismanagement with the diversion of 98 percent of its fresh water by Israel, Syria and Jordan and the discharge of untreated sewage, agricultural run-off, saline water and fish pond effluent in its place," the Friends of the Earth statement said.
The river, which today is a brackish stream barely a few yards wide, is very much a shadow of its former self. In 1847, a U.S. naval officer, who led an expedition along the river, described it as a river of cascading rapids and waterfalls. Statistics show that in 1948, the lower Jordan carried 1.3 billion cubic meters of fresh water but today it is less than 10 percent of that.
The river has two sites of interest, one in Jordan and the other in Israel. The Israeli site, known as Qasr al-Yehud, is a closed military area near the West Bank city of Jericho. In recent years the army, under pressure from the tourism ministry, has opened it to pilgrims on special occasions.
On the nearby east bank of the river in Jordan is Wadi Kharrar. It was found by archaeologists in 1997, and the Jordanians say it is the biblical "Bethany Beyond the Jordan" where John the Baptist exercised his ministry.
Despite the Israel-Jordanian peace treaty, decades of war in the region are said to have aggravated the pollution. Most of the valley is a closed military zone along both banks, and Jordan and Israel continue to find it hard to cooperate while conflict remains between Israel, Syria and the Palestinians.
Every year, thousands of pilgrims are baptized in the river. Benedict XVI visited the location of Jesus’s baptism last year, and John Paul II made the first visit by a pope to holy site in 2000.
Friends of the Earth Middle East says better management could save Israel 517 million cubic meters of water a year and Jordan 305 million cubic meters, part of which could be allocated to the Jordan river.
It adds that improving the flow of the Jordan River would also go a long way towards saving the Dead Sea, which is said to be withering rapidly.