The ministries of environmental protection and health were still formulating their responses on Tuesday to a proposal by the Prime Minister’s Office, due to be discussed on Sunday, to fast-track a bid by the powerful ICL company to secure approval for a controversial new phosphate mine.
Green organizations and residents of the eastern Negev have struggled for a decade to stop mining at Sadeh Barir, located around seven kilometers (4.3 miles) from Arad, a city of over 32,000.
Arad Mayor Yair Maayan, who opposes the project, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month, saying that despite Netanyahu’s pledge to coordinate any moves on Sadeh Barir with the city, which was made at numerous meetings also attended by Energy Minister Eli Cohen and Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, “we were surprised again to discover, without prior notice,” that Sadir Barir was back on the government’s agenda.
He wrote that the project would affect some 100,000 area residents, including 15,000 Bedouin citizens of Al Furah, who would have to be evacuated from the area designated for mining, and for whom no planning for alternative housing had been made. “We are not a Palestinian population, without rights, living over the Green Line [in the West Bank],” he added.
Environmental organizations appealed Thursday to the prime minister and other ministers to step back from the proposal.
They said the phosphate industry produces the most polluting type of waste — phosphogypsum, a byproduct of phosphoric acid production, which contains radioactive materials — accounting for 80 percent of all industrial waste in Israel. The mining process itself spreads dust containing radioactive materials in quantities that no one has tested, they added. They also charged that the industry is the largest consumer of fresh water, polluting streams and springs across the country.
View from the area of Sadeh Barir. (Gil Sofer)
In the past, the Health Ministry has warned that such a mine could lead to an “unreasonable” increase in morbidity and mortality in the area.
Supporters of the project include the mayor of Dimona, Benny Biton.
In 2022, the Naftali Bennett government said that no decision on Sadeh Barir would be made before an inter-ministerial discussion had been held to thoroughly examine the state’s policy on phosphate mining, including the health, environmental, and economic impacts.
Seventeen green organizations signed a letter asking to hold off on unfreezing the plan and reversing the Bennett-era decision, saying that data provided on phosphate reserves, economic and employment implications, and environmental impacts all come from the industry.
“This is a policy tailored to one thing like a glove: maximizing ICL’s profits,” they said.
Reversing the Bennett government’s plan to examine phosphate mining would “put the plan back on the fast track,” they continued, adding, that “this is a decision that will be made under the radar while the public is preoccupied with war matters, [and constitutes] a move that will affect human lives, public health and the image of the Negev for years to come.”
Rotem Amfert, now called ICL Rotem, the company that mines phosphates for the fertilizer industry, was responsible for one of Israel’s worst environmental disasters, when, on June 23, 2017, the wall of an evaporation pond collapsed, sending between 100,000 and 250,000 cubic meters (3.5 million to 8.8 million cubic feet) or more of highly toxic wastewater rushing through the Ashalim stream, southwest of the Dead Sea.
At least 13 ibex — a third of those living in the area — and numerous foxes and birds were found dead in the two weeks following the spill, according to the Environmental Protection Ministry.
A dead ibex found near the Ashalim stream after a massive acid waste spill on June 30, 2017. (Mark Katz/Nature and Parks Authority)
ICL Rotem is also a defendant in Israel’s biggest environmental class action suit to date, which claims that it and another ICL company, Dead Sea Periclase Ltd., allowed tens of millions of cubic meters of industrial effluents — including radioactive ones — to contaminate an aquifer and the Bokek stream near the Dead Sea, a popular tourism site.
In a statement, the Energy Ministry said the Sadeh Barir plan would be examined in line with guidelines for an environmental impact assessment, which would be determined by the National Planning and Building Council. That assessment, it said, would include an “in-depth examination of all potential impacts.”
It pledged that a decision would only be made “after a thorough and data-based examination” and that if necessary, an updated policy on phosphate mining would also be examined.
ICL chose not to respond.
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