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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert today, visited Mekorot transportation and filtration facilities in Hadera and Eshkol. He was accompanied by National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.
Prime Minister Olmert inspected the "New National Water System" desalination site in Hadera and the Eshkol central filtration plant in the Beit Netofa valley, which he dedicated approximately two years ago.
Prime Minister Olmert said – inter alia – that, "We are a water-poor country. Many generations were raised on this fact and knew that one always has to save, and be aware of, water in Israel. It is a fact that Israel's first great national project was out of concern for water – the construction of the National Water Carrier from the north to the south. If there is something that Minister Ben-Eliezer and I shouted about, and succeeded in correcting, it was the great neglect of desalination over the years. It could not be that Israel, which developed desalination technology that is exported all over the world, lacked desalination facilities that would resolve the water shortage. It was not impossible; it was a matter of investment and priorities. The Government decided on the construction of an additional desalination facility to assist Israel's water economy."
National Infrastructures Minister Ben-Eliezer commended Prime Minister Olmert's leadership, decision-making and dedication to the State of Israel, as well as his insistence on setting the water issue on the Government's agenda.
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