STAGE THREE: THE NATIONAL WATER CARRIER
Given the new political constraints, Israel decided to shift from the Jordan approach and instead base its National Water Carrier around Lake Kinneret, which would function as the central reservoir for the system. (The Netufah Valley site had turned out to have too high a percolation rate to serve as the central reservoir.[58]) Ecologically, this was fortuitous. The freshwater in the Jordan River naturally has only 5 percent of the chloride concentrations found in the Kinneret. Tapping this primary source of di-lution before it reached the Kinneret would have doomed the aquatic ecosystems in Israel's only freshwater lake.[59]
Yet from an engineering perspective, abandoning the B'not Yaakov bridge created a serious problem. Lake Kinneret lies more than two hun-dred meters below sea level.[60] Water would have to be pumped to a height of 151 meters above sea level before making its trip south, requiring copi-ous amounts of energy. As a result, today the National Water Carrier con-sumes one hundred megawatts of electricity, or 2 percent of the electricity produced in Israel.[61]
From the moment that the government approved the final plans for the National Carrier in 1956, it took eight years for Mekorot to complete the project. For almost a decade it swallowed 80 percent of the Israeli invest-ment in water infrastructure.[62] In June 1964, the gigantic, thundering pumps began to heave prodigious amounts of water up the Galilee hillside to begin a trip that remains unchanged to this day. Upon reaching its northern peak, the water flows into a scaled-down reservoir at Beit Netufah for purification treatment. After being properly sanitized, it makes an eighty-six-kilometer journey through enormous 108-inch, Ashkelon-made steel and concrete pipes. The route is interrupted by three additional tunnels, blasted through mountains and rocky terrain. The longest of these, the Menashe tunnel, stretches for 6.5 kilometers, begin-ning near the Megiddo-Yokneam road. At Rosh ha-Ayin, east of Tel Aviv, the water links up with the Yarkon-Negev system.[63]
Construction was not entirely free of international complications. As work on the National Carrier reached an advanced stage, Syria lodged an-other complaint with the Security Council. This time the United Nations chose not to intervene, and in December 1963 the Arab League decided to take matters into its own hands. It called for diverting the Hatzbani and Banias tributaries of the Jordan from their natural flow into Israel. (This would have left the National Carrier high and dry.) In February 1964, Syrian and Lebanese construction crews began to build canals to this end. Israel declared it a provocation and shelled the bulldozers. That summer the crews returned to the task, and this time Israel's Air Force took out the equipment. With only 1 percent of the work complete, Syria backed off.[64] The National Water Carrier was finally free to finish its “sacred” mission, which had started with Herzl's romantic vision.
It was a Herculean task. Many contemporary decision makers doubt whether the societal commitment exists today for such an enormous in-vestment in national infrastructure and water resource management.[65] Ultimately the National Water Carrier irreversibly changed the terms of reference of Israel's water policy. Of the 850 million cubic meters of water that reach Lake Kinneret, 30 percent evaporates. That leaves roughly five
The National Water Carrier also solidified Mekorot's role as the only serious player in the field of water supply and development (by 1965, more than 60 percent of Israeli households were receiving their water directly from Mekorot[68]). It is no wonder that there was a major battle over who would get to build the enormous system. Blass, who had spent six years planning the project and who had already overseen the first tunnel's exca-vation, was convinced that Tahal was best suited for the task. Levi Eshkol, Minister of Finance at the time, was concerned about Blass's tendency to go over budget. Eshkol was also worried that building such an enormous project would shift Tahal's role from one of planning to implementation, undermining institutional distinctions that were already muddled. Pinhas Sapir, still chairman of Mekorot, insisted that it run the project.
As usual Sapir got his way. Blass quit in a furor and never again re-turned to government service.[69] It is ironic that, in looking back on the National Water Carrier, all the old-time water managers give Blass full credit for making the project happen. History, however, is written by politicians, not engineers. The National Carrier's pumping station and mu-seum is called the Sapir Center. From there the water flows to the Eshkol Reservoir at the Netufah Valley.