Most of Israel’s desalination facilities were shut down on Tuesday morning after operating overnight, following another increase in seawater turbidity, the Water Authority and Energy and Infrastructure Ministry said Tuesday.
Under instructions issued for the national water system, local authorities will reduce water use for public landscaping and agriculture and work to cut other public water consumption.
Officials said water supplies to homes would continue despite the shutdowns.
The impact of a widespread malfunction at Israel’s desalination facilities reached central Israel on Monday, with residents of Givatayim warned that water supply disruptions could occur in the coming hours, including reduced water pressure and even outages in certain areas.
A message sent to residents stated: “Following problems with the water supply in the national water network, disruptions to water supply may occur in the coming hours, including reduced pressure and water outages in certain areas. We ask the public to conserve water as much as possible and use water only for essential needs until normal operations resume.”
The warning came amid an unusual disruption to Israel’s national water network, after five of the country’s six desalination facilities were forced to shut down. According to Water Authority Director-General Yehezkel Lifshitz, severe seawater turbidity that began over the weekend and moved from south to north has prevented the facilities from filtering water and operating normally.