June 22 (LPAC)--Gears are turning for the start-up in September, of a two-year feasibility study for building a canal from the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aqaba, to the Dead Sea. This project would provide desalinated water, electricity, and the means to rehabilitate the shrunken Dead Sea.

Approval for this Red-Dead study was concluded in 2005, by the three riparian parties of the Jordan Basin: Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Last week, one the principal negotiators for this agreement, Dr. Shaddad Attili, spoke at several events in Washington, D.C., describing the acute water supply crisis for the Palestinians, the history of inequitable allocation of water in the Jordan Basin, and the need for cooperative efforts to rectify this and to create new water resources. Attili has recently been appointed as the head of the Palestinian delegation on the Steering Committee of the Red-Dead Canal Feasibility Study. He is the Policy Advisor on Water and Environment, for the Negotiations Support Unit, of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Negotiations Affairs Department (PLO-NAD).

A satellite view of the region, with the proposed canal, and related specifications, are available on the website of the World Bank (web.worldbank.org, for "Red-Dead Sea Water Conveyance Feasibility Study and Environmental and Social Assessment.")

This scale of infrastructure-building is in line with the "Oasis Plan" approach promoted by Lyndon LaRouche for decades, for deploying technology to expand the resource base of the arid trans-Jordan region, and related energy and transportation, for agro-industrial development for the mutual benefit of all nations. An "Oasis Plan" refers to providing the equivalent of new rivers and water sites in the desert.

Dr. Attili described the proposed Red-Dead Canal, in an interview with EIR News Service, for publication in EIR Online, and June 29 EIR issue:

"The project is just to take water (two billion cubic meters) pump it for 100 meters, by natural flow for 180 km, and then drop the water from 100 meters to minus 400 meters [below sea level], using the difference in elevation to produce energy, and then use part to desalinate water. In the meanwhile around one billion will be left to flow to the sea for restoration...

"And let's assume that the Dead Sea water came back to its shape after 15 or 20 years, then we will manage to reduce the flow, instead of taking 2 billion, we will take only 1 billion, just to keep the facilities producing energy and desalination, and [account for] evaporation, and this will make the project feasible..."