Shrinking Sea of ​​Galilee has some hoping for a miracle

EIN GEV, Israel: It was not so long ago when Ein Gev would put their towels in the grbad at the edge of the Sea of ​​Galilee.
Today, they put up their umbrellas 100 meters (yards) further down, we've got a lot of fun on the beach.
"Every time we come to an end in our hearts," said Yael Lichi, 47, who has been visiting the famous lake for 15 years.
"The lake is a symbol in Israel. Whenever there is a drought, it's the first thing we talk about. "
In front of Lichi, with the pilgrims in the water, navigate the calm waters, among groups from across the world that visit.
The Sea of ​​Galilee, where Christians believe Jesus walked on water,
Plans are being made to resuscitate the freshwater body known to Israel as the Kinneret and Lake Tiberias.
For Israel, the lake is vital, having long been the country's main source of water. Newspaper Israeli newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper newspaper Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli Israeli
Its shrinking has been a source of deep concern. When two islands appeared in the Israeli media.
Since 2013 "we are below the low line" beyond which "salinity rises, fish have difficulty surviving and vegetation is affected," said Amir Givati, hydrologist at Israel's water authority.
The level is only around 20 centimeters above the record low in 2001 – except, at that time, 400 million cubic meters (14.1 billion cubic feet) have been pumped out for irrigation.
"This year, we only pumped 20 million cubic meters, but the lake is in a very bad state," said Givati.
Added to that is the 50 million cubic meters Israel sends to Jordan as part of peace agreements.
Its unique characteristics go beyond its religious significance.
It is 200 meters (650 feet) below sea level, located north of the Dead Sea, the River Jordan between them.
Both the Dead Sea and the Jordan have suffered from overuse.
The Galilee covers some 160 square kilometers (60 square miles), roughly the size of Liechtenstein.
At the water ministry, blame for its condition is placed on five years of drought.
But "climatic factors alone are inadequate to explain the record of shrinking the Sea of ​​Galilee," wrote Michael Wine, Alon Rimmer and Jonathan Laronne, researchers at Israel's Ben Gurion University.
Irrigated farming, pumping and diversions are the main culprits, they say in an badysis.
Israel constructed a national aqueduct in the 1950s in the years after the country's birth, when it was a quest for nation-building and sought to "make the desert bloom," as its early pioneers put it.
The waters of the lake towards the rest of the country.
"Lake Tiberias was used as a national reservoir," said Julie Trottier, a professor who specializes in Israeli-Palestinian water issues.
A man-made channel supplied water to the west to the Mediterranean coast and the Negev desert in the south, she said.
That system has not been in place for some 10 years. Now, most homes in the west of the world use of the Mediterranean, while farms are irrigated with water that is treated and recycled.
But eastern Israel does not have access to desalinated water, said Orit Skutelsky, of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
90 percent of the lake's input.
Dozens of pumps 100 million cubic meters (3.5 billion cubic feet) each year, said the researcher.
Several kilometers from the beaches at Ein Gev, at the foot of rocky hills, huge blankets covering banana trees with leaves wilt with the surrounding dry vegetation.
"We call it the valley of bananas," said Meir Barkan, tourism director for the Ein Gev resort.
"When they started planting trees, there was no water problem and the banana is the only fruit that you harvest year-round."
But without desalinated or recycled water, the farms are a player in the "competition for resources between nature, agriculture and tourism," said Eran Feitelson, a geography professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.
For Lior Avichai, agronomist at the Zemach Nisyonot research center, the solution is not to "kill agriculture and the local economy," but to use less water.
Authorities proposes providing the region with desalinated water via the aqueduct.
Skutelsky said that it is better to manage the ecosystem, the water should be more upstream and flow.
But "that would be very expensive," said Skutelsky.
Menahem Lev, 59, has 39 years of life on the lake as a fisherman.
In his open palm, he displays a Saint Peter's fish just pulled from his net, barely bigger than his hand.
"The solution can only come from the government – or from the sky," he said.
He points to the half-abandoned dock which pilgrims' boats can no longer reach, forcing visitors to disembark on the bank.
"I am really ashamed when tourists see the lake in this state," Lev said.