Why the Dead Sea Is Shrinking

In 1955, American ambassador Eric Johnston carried a plan across the Middle East meant to divide the Jordan River basin's water fairly among Israel, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. It would have given Israel 25 million cubic meters of Yarmouk water a year, Syria 90 million, Jordan 375 million. No Arab government would sign anything implying recognition of Israel, and the Johnston Plan died unratified. Israel did not wait. Its state water company, Mekorot, had already broken ground on the National Water Carrier project itself in 1953, giving new purpose to the decades-old Degania Dam at the lake's outlet, and by 1964 it finished the Carrier system, roughly 130 kilometers long, running from the Sea of Galilee down to the Negev desert. It moved about 320 million cubic meters of water south every year. The Jordan River had once poured roughly 1.3 billion cubic meters a year into the Dead Sea. That flow was about to be cut toward a small fraction of it.