By the sea > Articles > Last Chance to see the Dead Sea

It’s not a sight you associate with the Jordanian desert, three burly guys rubbing each other with black mud but it’s not the mud that matters so much here as the washing it off.

“It’ll make him look beautiful,” says Hammam slapping his friend’s face. “Soft skin. Just like a girl!”

The big thing that always strikes me about visiting the desert is not sand. Nobody’s interested in sand. It’s water. Go just an hour without it in the midday sun at Petra or the ruins of King Herod’s Castle or along the railway line that Laurence blew up in 1917 and you’ll soon know why Jordanians love water. They particularly love the Dead Sea. You can’t drink it, just a sip is like having a bag of salt poured down your throat, but to this small kingdom the Dead Sea represents life.

Travel down its shores from Mount Nebo, where Moses saw the Promised Land, to Potash City where the Jordanians are extracting four different minerals from vast salt pans and you get a unique insight into this country and its relationship with a vast lake located over 400m below sea level.

I came to Jordan because I heard the Dead Sea is dying. It sounds absurd doesn’t it but this rift valley lake, formed as the African and Arabian tectonic plates moved apart, is disappearing because of our need for water. The River Jordan which has replenished the Dead Sea for millions of years has been siphoned off so completely during the twentieth century that the level of the Sea of Lot (as its known in Arabic) is dropping by a metre a year. Syria, Israel and Jordan are to blame and yet you can’t blame them. The desert has to be irrigated, food has to be grown and cities have to be supplied with water or else nations fail.

But when I travelled down the Jordanian side of the sea recently I was shocked to see ridges cut into the shore line, ominous notches one after the other, each marking a year in the desiccation of this historic lake.

After leaving Hammam and his friends ducking each other on Amman Beach I travelled on to Wadi Mujib where I saw part of the problem. You can enter this stunning nature reserve from high up in the mountains or down by the Dead Sea. Only 24 people a day are allowed in on each of the three hiking trails into what is an exceptional wilderness formed around the valley (wadi) of the river Mujib. But then I saw what happens to the river after it reaches the end of its wadi. Huge concrete pipes enclose it and direct it away up to Amman to feed a thirsty city. What was once a side tributary of the Dead Sea, one of a number of freshwater river courses keeping levels topped up, has been diverted to supply the capital. It’s a story repeated all around the sea. The Jordanian people need water but that need is killing one of their major tourist attractions.

When I visit the hot springs of Hammamat Ma’in it’s the same story. These volcanic water courses surge up along the fault line that divides the Arabian and African plates and they’ve been providing healing sulphurous baths for thousands of years. King Herod, he who put John the Baptist’s head on plate to please Salome, used to come here to soothe his rheumatism. Nowadays the baths have been modernised and are less popular than the two volcanic waterfalls that plunge down over 100 feet on top of bathers below, a natural Jacuzzi where westerners in swimming costumes and Jordanians in burkas mix. Again it’s the same story: water draws desert people, they celebrate it in an atmosphere of fun. But go further down the wadi to where its waters originally entered the Dead Sea there is another concrete pipe. Amman and its townships to the north are thirsty for this water.

Anyone concerned for the environment could get gloomy. High above the point where Wadi Mujib originally entered the Dead Sea there is a twisted piece of rock that looks like a figure frozen as he or she turns away. For hundreds of years this has been known as “Lot’s Wife”, recalling the story of the disobedient spouse who looked back as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed and for her pains was turned into a column of salt. Will we see the Dead Sea go the same way in our lifetime?

One thing to get clear before I go any further. The Dead Sea is not really a sea. It’s an inland lake and Canada has much bigger ones that actually connect to the oceans. We call 67km long tract of water a sea out of long habit and because it’s salty like the sea. But actually it’s almost ten times more salty than the average ocean. For years people believed that this extraordinary level of salinity was a result of constant evaporation in the hot furnace of Jordan’s rift valley but it’s not just that. The Dead Sea is also fed from below by volcanic springs rich in salt. These bubble up from where that great tectonic rip is pushing Africa and Arabia apart. Even if all the rivers that feed the sea from above were diverted it would stabilise eventually, relying on these boiling springs. Unfortunately it would do so 100 metres below its current level. Hammam and his friends would find themselves standing on a cliff edge.

Fortunately help is at hand. When I visit the Dead Sea Panorama Centre, a stylish new restaurant and museum complex with views as far as Jerusalem I see models that show what’s going on and what’s going to be done about it. My guide, Rostom, shocks me at first. “Actually the floor of the Dead Sea is getting lower,” he says. “As the rift valley gets wider it also gets deeper so if anything we need more water flowing in, not less.” Rostom is optimistic however. “Have you heard about the Red-Dead Pipeline? A 320km pipe from the Gulf of Aqaba could bring in as much water as the Dead Sea needs. It has already been planned.”

The good news doesn’t just stop there. As the pipe drops 400m from Aqaba there would be ample opportunity to generate hydro electric power which in turn could drive desalination plants. These would not just control the eventual level of Dead Sea’s salinity but also irrigate huge tracts if desert in the south of Jordan which could be turned over to fruit and vegetable production.

It is a literal pipedream but is it too good to be true? Fortunately with the backing of the Jordanian and Israeli governments the Red-Dead looks set to happen as soon as the international community helps raise $800 million. The only question is to what level should the Dead Sea be returned? There are some very fine beaches in the north east corner of the sea now. Moevenpick, Marriott and Kempinski all have five star resort hotels to the south of the King Hussein Bin Talal Convention Centre where the World Economic Forum often meets. All have imported fine sand to make up their beaches. It would be a shame to see all that hard work washed away as sea levels return. Hammam and his friends would not be pleased. A compromise will be reached, so Rostom tells me. Jordan wants the Dead Sea back but it also depends heavily on tourism. These days 13% of its income comes from people who want to see Petra and float on their backs in the world’s saltiest lake.

Not everyone is convinced the Red-Dead (as it is known) will work. Some would prefer that Jordan restore the water courses currently diverted to Amman. The pipeline is simply fixing one major interference with nature by another major interference, they say. But it must be worth trying. Better Red than Dead surely? Supporters of the pipeline, like Arie Issar of Ben Gurion University’s Desert Research Centre are wont to quote the Old Testament.

“I will make rivers flow on barren heights …….I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs” (Isaiah 41:18)

We want to visit the Dead Sea because it’s fun, because it’s beautiful and because it’s there. Not because this is our last chance to see.

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