Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: More valuable than oil

Sunday, April 4, 1999 | 9:37 a.m.

LONG BEFORE the year 2100 the population of the world, 5.9 billion, will double. The world's supply of water not only won't double, it will remain constant or even diminish. Today, in one of the several great droughts suffered from time to time, in the Middle East, the water supply continues to drop as the population numbers soar.

Americans may believe the oil from that area is its most valuable asset but the people living there know that water is more valuable than oil. The people and governments of the Middle East are rapidly developing the attitude of early settlers in our own Western deserts. The belief that "Whiskey's fer drinkin' and water's fer fightin' over" has come down to us from those pioneers.

First, let's take a look at the water supplied by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Both rivers spring from an area within Turkey where they can be shut off if the Turks so desire.

Knowing this, it's rather easy to understand why Syria bounced PKK Kurdish terrorist Abdullah Ocalan from that country. There's no doubt that a tough Turkish army, in addition to water control, helped convince the Syrians that Ocalan operating from their soil against Turkey wasn't wise.

With just as much explosive power is the water situation and drought in the Israel and Jordan area. Because of the drought, Israel requested that Jordan use less water than provided under their 1994 peace treaty. That agreement was to transfer a fixed amount of water yearly to Jordan from their shared sources of Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) and the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers. Reuters news agency reports that Jordan's Prime Minister Abdul-Raouf al-Rawabdeh replied to the request that Jordan expects "the implementation of the agreement as is."

A recent 226-page international report on water problems in the Israel-Jordan area warns that its "inhabitants will almost assuredly live under conditions of significant water stress in the near future." Just imagine the stress their families will feel during the coming decades with the rapidly growing Palestinian Authority population as a neighbor. As their standard of living improves, so will their demand increase for more water.

The New York Times tells us, "Left carefully unmentioned were the consequences of a regional battle over dwindling water resources. But the concern was implicit.

" 'This is a very dry region and a very tiny region, with an importance out of all proportion to its size,' said David Policansky, staff director of the project."

The Jerusalem Post newspaper when reporting the study quotes Ayman Rabi of the Jerusalem-based Palestinian Hydrology Group saying, "one cannot afford to talk about the water issue from a very narrow perspective or in a nationalistic context." Rabi went on to warn that "only real scientific cooperation can provide the necessary information to scientists and planners." The report covers the problem, but gives no specific measures to solve it other than suggesting greater equity in the distribution of the supply available.

I have spent time in Israel during floods and also during the time of a drought that lasted seven years. The only large sources of water are in Lake Kinneret and two large underground aquifers. Like Southern Nevada, Israel has largely depleted the underground water supply available over the centuries. The great difference is that the large amount of water that flows down the Colorado River and the excess that other states don't use continues past Las Vegas and on to Mexico. Other than during years of floods there's no excess or surplus coming down the Yarmouk or Jordan rivers.

Two years ago, the Jerusalem Post wrote: "While the supply of natural fresh water is limited, Israel has large reservoirs of brackish water that could be desalinated for about the same price as the real market price in some parts of the country. Even if the waste caused by distorted pricing is ended, desalination and recycling of waste water will be needed to meet the growing demand. At the end of the day, there is no long-term water crisis -- only a question of how much water will cost."

I believe the problem is bigger than this and as the population numbers grow and standard of living improves the demand will even outgrow these recommendations. Already Israel is talking with Turkey about an underwater pipeline bringing fresh water to Israel as a pipeline under construction will take Turkish water to Cyprus.

The limited amount of water resources and/or the ability of one country to control the distribution of available water is a flash point that must concern the entire world. Truly, as people of the desert, we should appreciate what the desert people of the Middle East continue to face. In the long run it would be wise if our State Department spent as much time and effort on the water problems as they do trying to act as the preacher and policeman for the world.