The Dead and the Dying
Lesson from Israel’s Dead Sea and California’s Salton Sea
In the summer of 2019, I embarked on an adventure to visit Israel. It was a birthright trip from my home in Southern California to my ancestral homeland. A highlight was a bus tour with 14 other people and a guide that took us to the Earth’s lowest point — the Dead Sea. As we drove into the Jordan Rift Valley, we could see the blue water in the distance. Many people who visit the Promised Land want to go on a pilgrimage for religious, historical, or personal reasons. The only requirement is having a blood or religious tie to the area.
Despite being “dead,” the Dead Sea remains a popular tourist destination. “The Dead Sea region is an area of great historical and biblical significance,” explained retired Christian minister of 43 years, Clarence Hayes. It is the discovery place of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as an area central to many of the Bible’s greatest stories such as Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River. The region is where ancient civilizations, our ancestors, have risen and fallen. It is considered, by those who practice Abrahamic religions, to be the cradle of mankind — humanity’s birthplace. The Abrahamic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, make up between 45–55 percent of the world’s religious practices.
It is also a place of extraordinary biodiversisty in a mostly hostile desert environment. Hundreds of species of migratory birds find shelter in the oasis lining the sea’s banks as well a wide variety of fish and animal life, including ibex and leopards. As the Dead Sea shrinks, so, too, does it’s ability to be the long-sustaining resource it has been for humans and animals.
After being on the bus for some time, we arrived at the starting place for our hike to the water’s edge. To get there, we had to pass through what was essentially a ghost town . The area was deemed unsafe due to the numerous sinkholes. Sinkholes, are underground craters formed when the receding lake water dissolves the layers of salt under ground and there are now more than 3,000 surrounding the lake.
Some estimates put the number at twice that. Sinkholes, however, may actually protect the area from human activity and help preserve the ecosystem. One Israel-based newsource put it this way: “As the shoreline recedes, fresh water is forced to chase after it, dissolving more salt layers as it goes and creating new sinkholes.”
Looking around, some we could see all the empty buildings residents had been forced to relocate from. As we crossed a landmine of sinkholes and danger signs, the guide warned us, “Don’t step in front of me. Follow in a line close behind me.”
The closer we got to the water, the more the air smelled like rotten eggs. The guide explained how sulfur causes the odor. The ground turned into a sheet of salt that crunched underneath our feet each time we took a step. Our guide joked, “This is the really Dead Sea!” He explained that the people at the southernmost part of the Dead Sea are floating around in fake man made pools at the resorts because the Dead Sea has shrunk so much. Resorts are especially affected because they want prime beachfront property to attract tourists.
At the water’s edge, some of us removed our shoes to put our feet in the water. It burned due to the high salinity cleansing any wounds. The minerals have healing and rejuvenating properties. In fact, we were warned not to shave before going into the Dead Sea; one should wait at least two days before going in the water because it will burn. Looking at the ground behind us, we could see washed up salt lines indicating past water levels.
The Dead Sea has drastically shrunk over time due to insufficient inflow and mineral extraction. According to “The Dying of the Dead Sea” from Smithsonian magazine, the Dead Sea, once 50 miles long, is now just 30. As the article explains, the problem is pretty simple: the amount of fresh water coming into the lake used to be equal to the rate of evaporation. That’s changed drastically over the past several decades due to development and demands on the lake’s main water source.
Besides little streams, the Dead Sea’s main source of water is the Jordan River, which has been almost completely diverted for farming and agricultural purposes in the Jordan Valley. Our guide spoke passionately about how the Dead Sea’s inflow has been reduced to a slow trickle. He shared how local men swim from one side of the Dead Sea to the other to raise money and awareness for the Dead Sea and its many problems.
On my trip, I met up with Ricky Ben-Or, a Jerusalem resident who moved to Israel in 1977 when he was 19 years old. He loves the lifestyle, culture, and universal healthcare there. Ricky’s passion for the Dead Sea region has grown over time. He describes the Dead Sea as an “acquired taste.” Ricky shared that he didn’t love or appreciate it at first. “When I used to go in, I would run out as soon as possible and jump into a shower,” he said.
Even being next the water can feel uncomfortable. There are a lot of flies, and according to Ricky, the air feels like molasses. Plus, he said, “The salty water makes every cut, scrape, or rash sting like hell.” Now, Ricky says, this is no longer the case: “I actually savor it and let it heal my achy joints and fatigue.” He visits the Dead Sea at least a couple times per year, sometimes a few weekends in a row with his daughter from time to time in order to enjoy the therapeutic value of the water and the local environment.
According to Ricky, Israelis are “sick with worry” over the Dead Sea. He remembers many years ago when the water came up to the road. Now, the Dead Sea level is decreasing by about one meter annually, and the beach is hundreds of meters away from the road. “Frankly, this scares me,” Ricky told me. “We feel powerless to intervene as the issues are complex and transnational.”
The environmental impacts can’t be separated from politics. Ricky told me about the abandoned Ein Gedi campground on the western shore of the Dead Sea. This campground had showers, a gas station, a little restaurant, and free camping. It was popular with school groups, tourists, hikers, families, and even companies. Today, it is fenced off with all of its facilities closed to the public. The campground and beach are no longer accessible, and the road around the area was rerouted to avoid sinkholes. “Ironically, there is even a sign on the road that says ‘Beware of Sinkholes,’” said Ricky. “I’d like to know, how in the hell, while driving 90 km an hour, is it possible to avoid a sinkhole?” Ricky mentioned the hiker who though he was walking on solid ground but collapsed into a sinkhole of many meters and fell to his death.
While it doesn’t have sinkholes, the closest thing California has to the Dead Sea is the Salton Sea, located in the desert of the Imperial and Coachella valleys. The Dead Sea’s salinity levels are 337 g/kg while the Salton Sea’s is a measly 44 — which is still about double the salinity level of the Pacific Ocean. The Salton Sea formed in the early 1900s when irrigation canals flooded and filled a desert lake bed. Like the Dead Sea, the Salton Sea continues to shrink due to inadequate water inflow, but these bodies of water’s similarities don’t end there.
The Dead Sea and the Salton Sea are both “sumps.” This means that they have an inflow source, but no outlet. All water that enters the basins exits through evaporation or percolation down to groundwater. Both are technically considered lakes. They exist in arid climates with high mineral soils, which means that natural salts accumulate in the water as it flows over the landscapes toward the lakes.
The Salton Sea is evaporating and leaving dangerous toxic chemical particles and dust behind.
Jeff Hanlon, a political science professor at Whittier College specializing in water policy, explained how the lakes’ high salinity increases over time as salts enter and water evaporates. In the case of the Salton Sea, if the inflow rates decrease, the crumbly lakebed can become exposed and blow away as dust, resulting in air pollution problems. According to Hanlon, the Salton Sea, isolated in the desert between the poor counties of Riverside and Imperial, is off the radar of most Californians, despite being the state’s largest lake.
“To me, the Salton Sea is a tangible representation of the hubris of development — the idea that we can engineer nature for our purposes and not pay the health and environmental costs in the end,” Hanlon said.
Hanlon speculates Israel may have the ability to make more unilateral policy decisions regarding the Dead Sea. The U.S. is a federal system and the Salton Sea region comes under various, often competing jurisdictions: native nations, military properties, counties, municipalities, irrigation districts, and the federal bureau of reclamation. “This makes for very messy disunity in policymaking and assignment of responsibility,” Hanlon said.
New or old, water sources have multiple uses. Unfortunately, sometimes these uses end up being detrimental to the sustainability and structural integrity of the region’s ecosystems. Looking abroad, we can see the impactful environmental dilemmas that have occurred in the Dead Sea region due to extraction, sinkholes, and the reallocation of its watershed to the city.
The artificially created Salton Sea was abandoned due to the lack of profit that it potentially could have accumulated for its investors. Between the Dead Sea, which is seen as a cultural and religious icon by people around the world, and the Salton Sea, which was created on accident, both have vastly different purposes and views. But at the heart of these salty bodies of water lies resources and ecosystems that need to be maintained for the health of all.
Currently, a start-up called Lilac Solutions, backed by Bill Gates and other billionaires, may consider extracting lithium, a mineral used for hybrid and electric car batteries as well as for solar and wind power. If Lilac Solutions succeeds, it could result in a push for more clean energy sources.
