Red Sea coral reefs 'under threat' fromIsrael-UAE oil deal15 February 2021, by Jonah Mandel

Scuba divers at a coral reef while on a dive in the RedSea waters off the coast of Israel's southern port city ofEilat

Israeli environmentalists are warning that a UAE-Israeli oil pipeline deal threatens unique Red Seacoral reefs and could lead to "the next ecologicaldisaster".

The agreement to bring Emirati crude oil by tankerto a pipeline in the Red Sea port of Eilat wassigned after Israel normalised ties with the GulfArab nation late last year and should come intoforce within months.

With experts warning of possible leaks and spills atthe ageing Eilat port, and the Israeli environmentalprotection ministry demanding "urgent" talks on thedeal, activists mobilised last week.

They held a protest in a parking lot overlookingEilat's oil jetty against what they see as a disasterwaiting to happen, chanting that profits will bemade "at the expense of corals".

"The coral reefs are 200 metres (yards) from

where the oil will be unloaded," said ShmulikTaggar, an Eilat resident and founding member ofthe Society for Conservation of the Red SeaEnvironment.

"They say the tankers are modern and there won'tbe any problem," he said, warning however that"there's no way there won't be a malfunction".

He predicted that with the projected arrival of two tothree tankers a week, traffic will be "back-to-back".

Environmental activists gather for a protest at a parkinglot overlooking an oil jetty in the port city of Eilat

This, he said, would also impact the aesthetic of acity promoting ecological tourism.

"You can't sell green tourism when you have oiltankers by the dock," he said.

Unique reefs

The Jewish state and the UAE established ties lastyear as part of the US-brokered "AbrahamAccords".

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One of the deals that followed was a Memorandumof Understanding between Israel's state-ownedEurope-Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC) and a newentity called MED-RED Land Bridge Ltd—a jointventure between Abu Dhabi's National Holdingcompany and several Israeli firms.

In October, EAPC announced a "binding MoU" withMED-RED to bring crude from UAE to Eilat andthen transport it by pipeline to Israel'sMediterranean city of Ashkelon for onward export toEurope.

Taggar argued that deals benefitting the fossil fuelindustry at the expense of the environment are "notin the spirit of our times".

Men row on standup paddle boards in the Red Seawaters near the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company's(EAPC) oil terminal

"It might have been appropriate in the 1960s and1970s, before we were a developed state," he said.

Activists argue the deal evaded tough regulatoryscrutiny because of EAPC's status as a state-owned firm working in the sensitive energy sector.

While coral populations around the world are underthreat from bleaching caused by climate change,the reefs in Eilat have remained stable due to theirunique heat resistance.

Eilat's coral beach reserve extends some 1.2

kilometres (almost a mile) off the city's coast,protecting reefs that are home to a rich variety ofmarine life.

But their proximity to the EAPC port puts them atgrave risk, Nadav Shashar, professor of marinebiology at Beersheba's Ben Gurion University, toldAFP.

The infrastructure is not set up to prevent accidentsand only designed "to treat pollution once it'salready in the water," said Shashar, who is alsohead of marine biology and biotechnology at Eilat'sInteruniversity Institute for Marine Science.

Shashar, one of 230 experts who petitioned PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu against the deal,argued that with the increase of shipments, "theresult will be a constant leak of oil pollution".

Shmulik Taggar, a resident historian of Israel's Red Seaport city of Eilat and founding member of the Society forConservation of the Red Sea Environment

'Get in the way'

After the agreement was struck in October, EAPCsaid it could increase oil flow through Eilat by "tensof millions of tonnes per year".

Contacted by AFP, the company declined todiscuss the deal's specifics but stressed that itsequipment was "state of the art" and up to

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international standards.

The environmental protection ministry said it hadfulfilled its oversight role but also called for an"urgent discussion of all relevant governmentalbodies" to review the deal.

The talks, a statement said, "would examine allangles—including the environmental ones—ofincreasing the volume of crude oil beingtransported".

Shashar said the goal was not to close down EAPCbut to "limit the extent of its use to something thatcan be handled".

Some activists have voiced more militant views,including Michael Raphael of the internationalExtinction Rebellion movement.

While coral populations around the world are under threatfrom bleaching caused by climate change, the reefs inEilat have remained stable due to their unique heatresistance

Youths jump into the Red Sea water off an abandoned oiljetty in Israel's southern port city of Eilat

Raphael, who came to the recent rally armed with abullhorn, said he was aiming to set up an ExtinctionRebellion chapter in Eilat to resist the UAE deal.

"If the problem isn't solved, we'll have to get in theway of things," he said. "We don't just demonstrate... we disrupt the work of those who pollute."

© 2021 AFP

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APA citation: Red Sea coral reefs 'under threat' from Israel-UAE oil deal (2021, February 15) retrieved11 May 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2021-02-red-sea-coral-reefs-threat.html

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