Israel shuts most desalination plants amid severe seawater turbidity, prompting water use cuts
Five of Israel's six desalination plants were halted due to high seawater turbidity, leading authorities to limit non-essential water use while household supply remains intact.
Most of Israel's desalination facilities were taken offline on Tuesday morning after operating through the night, officials said, citing a surge in seawater turbidity that hampered the plants' filtration systems. The Water Authority and the Energy and Infrastructure Ministry indicated that, under national water-management directives, local municipalities will curb water use for public landscaping and agriculture and seek to reduce other non-essential consumption.
"Water supplies to homes will continue despite the shutdowns," the authorities assured residents.
The disruptions, which began on Monday, affected central regions, prompting warnings of reduced pressure and possible outages. Residents of Givatayim received alerts about potential service interruptions, and Arad's mayor Yair Maayan reported an overnight water outage in his city.
Water Authority Director-General Yehezkel Lifshitz explained that severe turbidity, which started over the weekend and moved northward, forced five of the six plants to cease operations. Local water providers, such as Mei Shemesh in Beit Shemesh, are coordinating with the national water company Mekorot to mitigate impacts on households.