World ON THE COVER Shell Game from page A21 The first to come online, built and oper- ated in Ashkelon by IDE Technologies, is the largest plant of its kind in the world. It produces 26 billion gallons of drink- ing water a year at a cost of $1.97 per 1,000 gallons and was recognized as the Desalination Plant of the Year at the Global Water Awards in Dubai in March 2006. And the great advances in low-cost desalination are in the future through Israeli research into solar energy and nan- otechnology, said Oded Distel, the director of Israel's NEWTech (Novel Efficient Water Technologies) initiative. NEWTech is a pilot project of the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor to promote Israeli businesses worldwide. The initiative started in 2006, when Israel's water-related exports totaled $800 million. The goals of the three-year initiative are to boost the exports to $2 billion by 2010, establish a solid global foundation for the Israeli industry and help develop a range of companies in Israel to build on that base. choose, we can produce drinking water:' Parsons said. But a psychological obstacle remains before people will drink water that once was in their toilets, so the cleaned water is put to agricultural and industrial uses even though the process could produce potable water for half the cost of desalination. Of course, Israel is working on cheaper desalination as well. "At this point, Israel is a world-class leader in water technology, on a par with any other country," Rubel said. Israeli companies old and new have won contracts in more than 100 countries for a range of products and systems, Distel said. NiroSoft, for example, delivered 10 portable desalination units to relief agen- cies for survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunamis in December 2004. Amiad Filtration is providing the sewage treat- ment for the Beijing Olympic village this summer. NaanDin, an irrigation company formed in 2001 from a merger of a couple of Israeli companies, sold half of itself to Indian conglomerate Jain last year. Israeli exports in the industry rose 28 World - Class Leader percent to $1.1 billion in 2007, Distel said. "We look at water technology as the next Ten Israeli venture-capital funds have engine for the Israeli economy," Distel said. committed $250 Desalination, filtration, irrigation, ultra- million to water violet purification, wastewater treatment technologies and with numerous approaches, pollution Israel has 70 start- prevention, leakage control and other up companies in infrastructure management are some of the water business. the areas in which Israeli companies are International giants pursuing global business. such as Siemens, For example, Israel developed drip General Electric and irrigation, a technique discovered in 4th Dow Chemical have century archaeological ruins, because it entered strategic couldn't afford the water loss to evapora- partnerships with Israeli companies. (For tion involved in traditional irrigation. So a list of major Israeli water-tech compa- it delivered precise amounts of water to its nies and what they do, visit JNonline.us .) crops in drops. To showcase Israeli technology, Mekorot The refinements of the process include established WaTech — Entrepreneurship delivering water directly to roots through & Partnership Center for Water high-grade plastic tubing, said Gene Technologies — in 2005 while Oren led Rubel, an Atlanta business consultant who the company. The program allows Israeli heads the clean-tech committee of the companies to test their ideas at Mekorot American-Israel Chamber of Commerce facilities and takes advantage, Oren said, in the Southeast. One company makes leaf of the fact that Israel has examples of 40 sensors to gauge when each plant needs percent of the climate zones in the world watering. despite its small size. More than half the water used in Israeli "We understood that we needed to agriculture is recycled — a higher per- change the paradigm from collecting centage than any other country, according water to producing and using it more to JNF. That makes sense, given that Israel efficiently;' he said. The great success of recycles 75 percent of its wastewater, Distel Israel's efforts, Oren said, is that the issue said. Spain, at 12 percent, is No. 2 in the of water is no longer a question of suffi- world at water recycling. cient supply, but merely a matter of cost. Many Israeli companies offer new tech- "We do not have a choice he said. "We nologies for cleaning wastewater — as will produce new solutions because at well as industrial waste and contaminated the end of the day we are a small country. ground water — to make the water safe We need to offer new things in order to for reuse and to remove the threat of any survive." toxins or other contaminants. Oren chaired an international water "The technology is there that, if we so trade show called WaTec that Israel held at the end of October. It drew more than 2,000 visitors, including 25 cabinet-level ministers of foreign governments, 90 for- eign delegations, top executives from such companies as GE and Siemens, and the water chiefs for every state in Australia. Israel plans another WaTec conference in 2009, Oren said. "The fact that so many people came shows how important is this Israeli indus- try:' Distel said. Need Over Politics Distel's purpose is not to win good public- ity for Israel, but he said it's a nice bonus if more people around the world develop an image of Israel as a supplier of humanitar- ian technology. "By leading the world in water solutions, maybe we can offer different points of view for the country:' Oren said. Mansour, a former ambassador to Ecuador, said he has seen that effect in Latin America. "If you mention Israel in terms of water in Latin America, every- body knows you're talking about a super- power." That's not to say Israel's efforts have been free of prob- lems. JNF was denied consultative status before the U.N. Economic and Social Council last year in a purely anti-Israel move, but Hess said JNF continues to offer its expertise. Diplomacy is "a very cynical game Mansour said. "Sometimes some countries that you help don't want you to go out and speak about it." But Hess said the need for water opens an avenue for international cooperation — an avenue that could become a road to peace. Israel has used water to become a peacemaker in Latin America, Mansour said. Countries that fought wars over borders now are working with Israeli com- panies to develop shared water resources along those borders. "It's human need;' Hess said, and people ultimately will put it above politics. He noted a U.N. session JNF sponsored for nongovernmental organizations a few years ago on the water crisis. People pre- dicted that organizations would stay away, but that didn't happen. Just as Israel has shared its agricultural know-how with developing nations in Africa and elsewhere since the 1950s, it is willing to do water business anywhere in the world, even in countries that don't recognize Israel, Mansour said. Israel is a superpower in water technology and has used water to become a peacemaker. A22 March 6 2008 Distel opened meetings with state government and water agency officials in Georgia in January, and Israelis will play prominent roles this month in the annual conference of the Georgia Association of Water Professionals. Success in solving Georgia's problems with water supply and management would go a long way toward bringing water peace to the U.S. Southeast. The same could happen in the Middle East. "Water is a big challenge, and it can really be the reason for the next genera- tion of wars in the Middle East, but if we want to be positive, we have to see also that it can be a great reason for coopera- tion:' Mansour said. The prime example of that coop- eration is Jordan. Under the 1994 peace treaty, Israel supplies 13.2 billion gallons of water a year to the desert kingdom, and the countries are partners with the Palestinians in a proposed U.N.-backed project to save the evaporating Dead Sea with a canal connecting it to the Red Sea. Jordan not only has welcomed Israeli expertise, including that of JNF, but its Higher Council of Technology is a partner with JNF, Egypt's Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, and six American universities in the 17-year- old International Arid Land Consortium. The IALC built a desalination water- purification plant outside Petra, Jordan, which Hess, an IALC vice president, vis- ited. "It's amazing to see this complete desert, desolation, but there is green and agriculture for the grazing of their flocks. It all has to do with Israeli initiative In Egypt, Mansour said, Israel has used its agricultural expertise, including water- stretching irrigation, to establish two farms that are the size of some American counties. Those farms have allowed Egypt to become an exporter of apples and mel- ons, but Egypt is silent about the Israeli role. The Palestinians are not silent about the role of water in final-status talks with Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas lists water among six issues that are essential to any agreement. That prominence is fine with Oren. "I prefer that Israel will lead the world in supplying water technology and not in supplying ammunition," he said. "The market is bigger, and I think it's good for all our supporters in the world to under- stand that water can be a very important means of peace in this region:' ❑ See jnonline.us for a list of Israel companies involved in water technology. Michael Jacobs is managing editor of our sister paper, the Atlanta Jewish Times.