\n Still, it\u2019s an alarming situation given the country\u2019s heavy dependence on desalination for drinking water. Israel is arid and has neither big rivers nor abundant rainfall, but its mastery of this technology has made it a water superpower. Desalination now provides at least 65% of its drinking water, with most plants located on the Mediterranean coast.\n <\/p>\n
\n The problems started at the weekend, as a \u201csporadic, vast event of contaminates occurred across the Israeli coastline,\u201d said Edo Bar-Zeev, an associate professor in water research at Ben-Gurion University, in Israel. When he and other scientists looked closer, they discovered it was microalgae, tiny organisms that feed on sunlight, carbon dioxide and nutrients in the water \u2014 and which can grow rapidly.\n <\/p>\n
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\n The microalgae bloom \u2014 stretching more than a dozen miles at least, according to Bar-Zeev \u2014 is believed to have originated in the Nile Delta and traveled northward with the sea\u2019s currents up Israel\u2019s coast. This is \u201cthe first time I saw something in this extent,\u201d said Bar-Zeev, who has been testing the coastal water for 20 years.\n <\/p>\n
\n The country\u2019s desalination facilities mostly use a technology called \u201creverse osmosis,\u201d where water is pre-treated to remove larger contaminants, before it\u2019s pushed through membranes which filter out salt, bacteria and other molecules to leave clean drinking water.\n <\/p>\n
\u26c5 Get CNN Weather in your inbox<\/p>\n
The forecast is just the beginning. We\u2019ll\u202fsend you expert coverage and the stories behind the weather \u2014 so you always know more than just the number. Sign up for the newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n \n Algae, and the substances they produce, can foul and damage the membranes, said Michael Christopher Low, director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah. If there\u2019s too much suspended material in the water, the treatment processes cannot keep up.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s happened before. A severe \u201cred tide\u201d \u2014 a harmful algae bloom \u2014 in the Gulf of Oman in 2008 and 2009 affected many desalination plants<\/a> in that region.\n <\/p>\n \n In Israel, the government water system has \u201cstepped in to close the gap\u201d caused by the plant closures, Mekorot\u2019s Gutman said. This has included pumping water from the Sea of Galilee, activating groundwater wells and using national water reserves.\n <\/p>\n \n Some cities have faced short-term local restrictions, including on garden irrigation and filling swimming pools, but the the main limitations affected farmers who use drinking water-quality water for irrigation, as opposed to those who use recycled water, Gutman said.\n <\/p>\n \n The timing compounded the problem. It happened in summer \u201cwhen water demand in Israel is at its highest,\u201d he said, adding \u201cthe situation has been challenging.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n A bloom occurs when the right combination of environmental factors in the water come together that allow the algae to grow rapidly, said Tamar Guy-Haim, a marine ecologist at the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute. These include nutrients, temperature, light, currents and mixing.\n <\/p>\n \n Mekorot said this recent bloom was part of \u201cvery unusual combination of factors,\u201d including a sea storm that increased turbidity \u2014 the amount of suspended matter in the water \u2014 and raised sea temperatures to 86 Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) and above.\n <\/p>\n \n The extent of the disruption is striking. Desalination facilities have been forced to close before due to algae or jellyfish, \u201cbut multiple facilities over the large portion of our coast is something that is definitely abnormal,\u201d Ben-Zeev said.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s something the country needs to figure out how to deal with \u2014 and will, he added. \u201cIt\u2019s a fair estimation that this will not be a once-in-a-lifetime kind of event \u2026 you can assume that this will occur more and more through climate change.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n As the planet heats up, driven by humans burning fossil fuels, the oceans are changing. Temperatures are at record highs<\/a>, currents are shifting and stronger storms wash more pollutants into the water, including sewage and fertilizers, which can trigger huge algae blooms.\n <\/p>\n \n This temporary crisis also exposes a broader concern, experts say.\n <\/p>\n \n Desalination is becoming increasingly popular, especially as the climate crisis drives more severe heat and drought, undermining water security. But this growing dependence on a centralized, technical solution carries risks. \u201cThis event is causing considerable alarm and even some criticism that the system is too vulnerable to a dramatic disruption,\u201d Low said.\n <\/p>\n \n This could be natural or climate change-driven events, but there\u2019s also the possibility of military and cyber threats. Desalination plants in the Gulf have been targeted and damaged<\/a> during the US-Iran war, raising significant alarm in a region that depends overwhelmingly on this technology. Hackers have also targeted water facilities, including in the US.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n \n Oil spills are another big concern. \u201cIt\u2019s not if, it\u2019s just when an oil spill in the vicinity of desalination facilities will occur,\u201d Ben-Zeev said. A lot of plants are in water-scarce countries that are also big oil producers, such as the Gulf states.\n <\/p>\n \n A spill could potentially take plants offline for a much longer time than this microalgae bloom, he added. \u201cThat to me is way more worrying.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A miles-long microalgae bloom in the Mediterranean Sea has been blamed for temporarily knocking offline many of Israel\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-605526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Israel's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/gettyimages-2292398994.jpg\")
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