Ecologists warn of potential disaster by Israel's offshore rigs
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E-mail Xinhua, October 25, 2012
Israel's offshore facilities could pose enormous ecological and economic damage in case of a spill, Israeli ecologists warned Wednesday.
A document released on the website of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) shows that day-to-day pollution is an environmental threat, since those facilities are not monitored properly.
The SPNI relates Israel's offshore facilities to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, when British oil giant BP's deep water drilling rig exploded near the coast of Louisiana and caused one of the U.S. worst ecological disasters.
Furthermore, it warns that most of Israel's deep water drilling is experimental and that the current legislation to deal with potential issues lags far behind what it should be.
Israel's Petroleum Law, the document reads, was elaborated in 1952, at a time when ecological concerns where almost non-existent, and even today regulations do not include environmental demands.
"Israel is increasingly dependent on natural resources from the sea, which will also be the source of much of its drinking water and much of its electric power," SNPI deputy Director-General Nir Papai told Ha'aretz daily.
"For that reason accidents and incidents of pollution can have not only environmental ramifications, but also economical," Papai said.
The SPNI also advices that certain steps need to be made in order to prevent an environmental catastrophe, including setting up a national preparedness plan in case of disaster and a sufficient budget.
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