Last weekend, a leak was discovered from ICL’s Dead Sea plants to Nahal Tselim. This is a nature plot with rare vegetation and special animals like foxes, deer and hyenas that grow there. It is not yet clear what the extent of the damage is, but it certainly exists. The leak was reported to the Ministry of Environmental Protection 24 hours after it was discovered. It was only after that that a press release was issued stating that the leak was being investigated and those responsible would be summoned to a hearing. ICL said they had already emptied the leaked canal. But after all this, more than seven days after the discovery, the salt-rich water continues to flow within the area and poison the environment. Even the canal is still far from empty. No one stopped the leak, which continues to flow and seep.
ICL said in response that the case was reported to the authorities and that the company is taking responsibility for the treatment and rehabilitation of the area. But over the years, the factories of the Ofer Brothers group have been considered particularly polluting. Such that are at the top of the pollutants table in the country.
January 17, 1999 will be recorded in the history of the country as the day when the Ofer Brothers group officially opened the celebration, which continues to this day. The Eisenberg family sold control of the Israel Company to Yuli and Sami Ofer for $ 330 million. But not everyone is invited to this party.
The Israel Company has money and a sea of polluting factories, including oil refineries, BZN in Hebrew, ICL, Israel Chemicals, which has rebranded itself as the ICL Corporation, the Dead Sea Works, Rotem Ampert, Carmel Olefins and several other regular stars. In the opening ten of the Israel Pollutant Enterprises Index. All of them – of the Ofer brothers, and only theirs. “We remain in complete control of everything,” they clarified in 1999.
In August of that year, their factory in Haifa Bay polluted the sea with emulsion, crude oil that decomposed in water. The Ministry of the Environment then described this pollution as “the most serious marine pollution in Israel since the establishment of the state.” 300 tons of crude fuel were ejected ashore and the fuel was absorbed in the sand dunes. The biggest pollution happened five years ago, at the Rotem Ampert factory in the Negev.