LlTANI RIVER AUTHORITY CHAIRMAN SCORES ISRAELI INTENTIONS
Beirut MONDAY MORNING in English No 514, 26 Apr 82 pp 26-31
[Article by Lydia Georgi]
[Text] If Israel starts pumping water out of the Litani River in South Lebanon. 6,000 hectares of agricultural land between Sidon and Tyre will be deprived of irrigation water, and the Jabal Amel area will lose its drinking water, according to the chairman of the Litani River Authority's board of directors, Kamal Khoury. The move, Khoury said in a private interview with Monday Morning last week, might also undermine an ambitious project to irrigate the highlands of South Lebanon. But it would not affect the prcxluction of electricity by the Litani hydroelectncity installations. which produce 40 percent of Lebanon's power needs. because these are located farther upstream, in the Beqaa region. To stop the production of hydroelectricity by the Litani R1ver Authority, Israel would have to go farther in its v1olatton of Lebanese sovereignty and water rights: it would have to etther capture or destroy the multi-million-dollar Karaoun dam in tht! Beqaa . If that were to happen, Khoury satd. It\~ result would be total disaster for the Lebanese economy. Khoury was commt!nting on reports from the South last week that Israelis had been seen installing pumps on the L1tan1 Rtver at a point close to the Khardah bridge, wtth the .~pparent mtention of drawing water out for Northern Israel. The Lttan, River rtses near Baa1oeck in the Beqaa, flows down to a point JUSt east of Beaufort Castle in the South, then makes a sharp turn to the west and empties into the Mediterranean just north of Tyre at Qasmiyeh- a 130-ktlo· meter course on which Israel can have no legal claim, since all of it falls well within Lebanon's internationally recogniz· ed borders. Khoury said that Lebanon was already making full use of the Litani River in the fields of hydroelectricity and Irrigation. One of Lebanon's richest sources of water, the Litani has been the subject of Lebanese oHicialdom's special attention m~ce pre·1ndependence days.
73 of the famous hydraulic engineer) is connected to Lake Karaoun by a seven-kilometer tunnel. The Litani water1 flow from the Karaoun lake 1nto the tunnel and drop around 200 meters to turn the turbines that generate electricity in the. Abdelaal Plant. The second power plant: From Markabi the water is diverted into a 16·kilometer tunnel that pierces the main range of mountains to the west, going under Jezzin and emerging at the foot of a valley on the Awwali River, where the second power plant was built. The construction of this long tunnel cost the life of one man, Paul Arcache, whom Khoury described as "a very effictent and very loyal Litani engineer." Arcache died in an accident during construction, and to honor him, the Awwali power plant, completed in 1965. was christened the Paul Arcache Plant. The water diverted from Markabi through the tunnel falls 400 meters to turn the Arcache Plant's turbines. Current usage of the river is based on initial plans developed by two Lebanese engineers - Albert Naccache, the Litani "pioneer" who prepared his initial plan as far back as 1939, and Ibrahim Abdelaal, who contributed most to the Litani utilization plan. MISSION In the early 1950's, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation sent a mission of experts and engineers to Lebanon to study and develop the ideas of Naccache and Abdelaal. In 1954, the mission presented to the Lebanese government a full technical and feasibility study on how the Litani can best be used. The government took the study .to the World Bank and, in protracted negotiations for a loan. modified it, developed a plan for the utilization of the Litani waters and established the Litani River Authority, whose first chairman was Selim Lahoud. In 1957. the World Bank gave Lebanon a loan of 27 m1llion dollars to go toward the implementation of the first phase of the Litan1 plan- the hydroelectricity phase. The loan covered the partial cost of constructing a dam at Karaoun 111 the Beqaa Valley and two power plants- one on the L1tan1 itself and one on the Awwali River, west of the Litan1. A seven·million·dollar loan from Kuwait in 1967 went mto the construction of a third power plant, also on the Awwall. The three plants are now making maximum use of the BOO ·meter elevation between Karaoun and sea level for the produCtion of hydroelectriCity. The Karaoun dam: Initially. the Lebanese government had decid'!d to build the dam in stages. starting it small and ra1s1ng 1t gradually
74 The thud power plant: This was bu1lt in 1968 at Joun, further downstream on the Awwali River. A third tunnel built from the Arcache Plant to Joun supplies it with water which has a "head" of 180 meters. PRODUCTION By 1981, Lebanon hao repaid the World Bank and Kuwait loans with Interest. That year, Khoury said, the tt~ree plants provided Lebanon wtth 870 million kilowaa/hours of hydroelectrtctty - one third of the total prctduced by the national grid company, the Electrtcite du Liban, and 40 percent of Lebanon's power needs last year. The rest of Lebanon's electricity is produced by thermal power plants, whtch are obviously more expensive to run and also less flexible than the Litant River Authority's hydroelectrtcity plants. "Everyone is complaining of the high cost of electricity,'' Khoury said, "but the cost would have been much higher had one th1~d of Lebanon's power needs not been provided in the form of cheap hydroelectricity oy the Litani plants... "In additton, the flexibility of the Litani plants makes them even more important. As you know, the consumption of electricity varies during the day and between day and night: it goes up in the morning, drops slightly in the afternoon, rises sharply in the evening, and drops again at n1ght, and the variatton becomes more pronounced in the three or four hot months, durtng which air conditioning is used. The natiOnal grid's steam plants cannot easily cope w1th the rise and fall of demand during the day. If you turn oif a machtne in a steam plant, it will normally take you two to three hours- depending on the machine's des1gn and load conditions - to turn it on aga1n for peak-demand hours. In contrast, the full capacity of the hydroelectrtctty plants can be turned off and on almost instantaneously. in a matter of seconds, wh1ch makes them a very important part of the back up 1n the Lebanese electrtcity system." Because the Naccache Dam and the Abdelaal Plant are h1gher upstream on the Litant, and because the two other power plants are on the Awwali, the prctduction of hydroelectrtcity in Lebanon will not be affected if the reports about Israeli pumps near the Khardali bridge prove accurate. "For the producttOn of hydroelectricity to be affected." Khoury sa1d, "the Israelis would have to do one of two thmgs - e1ther take control of the dam at Karaoun compt~te ly or destroy it and dra1n Lake Karaoun of the watEr that •s be tng used for electricity. "That would be a total disaster for the entire Lebanese economy . w1th drast1c repercussions affecting our way of life 1n the North . 1n the center and in the South - all over the country. It would deprtve us of the use of a pro1er:t wh1ch. wh~n ot wJs implemented, cost us one ;hlfd vt our Gras; Nat ,onal Product - proportionately more than 11 cost the Un1to!d States to send a man to the moon. whtCh cost 10 percer\t of Amer1ca's GNP on 1969. It would dt!prove us oi thi! frlJitS of the onvestment and labor ,1f J fu ll ~en~'at•on uf L·•t.Jan~s~ ·.vho worked to 1mplt.>ment th •s pro,ec: Jnd repay o!S costs. It would deprtve Ul .)! the pr~sent Jnd !utur~ u~es
75 of this tremendous proJeCt, wh1ch is so vitt~l for the daily life of every Lebanese. I say 'future uses' because we can use the water stored in Karaoun in a number of ways - either to produce hydroelectricity as we do now, or to provide the city water that Lebanon needs so much, or to devote it fully to irrigation." Gradually. if Lebanon's power needs began to be met by other sources of ~nergy ("in the 1960s, for instance, the government was thinking in terms of nuclear power plants, which were thought to be inexpensive"). more of the Litani waters would be used for irrigation, the second phase of the litani project, Khoury said. IRRIGATION In fact, many areas have already been considered for irrigation through the use of the Karaoun waters. Until the Lebanese war erupted, top priority was being given to a project for the irrigation of 20.000 hectares in the Beqaa Valley, between Lake Karaoun and. Rayak. The project would have required 220 million cubic meters of water annually, of which 15 million would have come from Lake Karaoun and the rest woulrl have been provided by vat~ous springs in the Beqaa and by the area's abundant underground water which was to have been drawn out through artesian wells. The pro1ect progressed to the point where the Litani Rive~ Authority negotiated d 55-million-dollar loan from the World Bank, and the loan agreement was 1nitialled in 1974. The loan was to be conditional on the p;~ssing of certain leg1slat1on by the Lebanese Parliament relating to the method of tarlficat1on, land tenure and other politiCally sensitive ISSUeS. The loan never came through, however, for two reasons: F1rst because Parliament has not been 1n a pos1tion to pass the rt!Qulled legislat1on smce 1975, and second because by the t1me the c1vil war ended. the entlfe economics of the pro,ect had chc~nged. Specifically. Khoury said. two ma1ur changes had occurred: 1. Our ing the c1vil war, most of the private shallow wells which the project had planned to replace with deeper wells were destroyed. Their owners have since bought new, more eff1c1ent eqUipm~nt to replace the old and at the same time deepened the wells - which is essentially what the Litani Author1ty had planned to do as part of the overall irrigation proJect . Replacmg those new wells now would cost "a pr~ostl!rous amount of money," changing the entire economics of the project. 2. S1nce 1974, the cost of od has soared ~rom 2.5 dollars per barrel to 34 DPB - a multiple of 14. At the same time, the Lebanese pound has dropped from LL. 2.5 to the dollar toLL . 5 to the dollar, which makes oil prices for Lebanon 28 t1mes what they were 1n 1974. Th1s ra1ses a question which was not cons1derc-d 1n 1974: should there be so much dependence on underground water, wh1ch would need a great deal of fuel to pump out. or is it w1ser to make maxim~m use of whatever surf ace water IS available]
76 Furthermore, Khoury sct.id, 70 percent of the 20,000 hectares which were to be irrigated in the project were now being irrigated by th~ newly equipped private wells. For these reasons, the original project has been shelved in the hope that a much wider, "mort! daring" Beqaa irrigation project would be developed along different linc>s in the> futurt.?.
In the meantime, however, the Litani R1ver Authority has ~en constructing a smaller Irrigation network covering the cx treme south of the area or1ginally covt!red by the plan 2,000 hectares 1n the Jeb Jenm-Karaoun region, which is difficult for pr•vate farmers to irrigate. This small irriqation network, C.llled the South Beqaa Irrigation Project, will go into opt!rat1on th•s summer. The pumping station on Lake Karaoun and the 1rr•gat1on canal have been built, and one th1rd of the pro1ect wdl go on stream within a few weeks. Another "mini-pro1ect" wh•ch has just been completed is .n the h tg htands o! South lebanon · the Labaa lrrtgat•on ProteCt, Nhtch covers around 1.200 hectares in the area betw~n Sodon on the coast and JeZZII'\ 11'\ the Southern moun:a,ns. Thos i~ a largely expertmental pro1ect to evaluate th
HIGHLANDS n·. .. '"·l)at:un ,,r trt! S(\u•hern h•qhiJr.ds - Jreas ly.ng cougnly 500 ·o00 .11eters above sea icv'!l - was g1ven top prtor•tv :1 tr.e 197Qs, wh~n the pro,ect was studied e•to~nm·elv by the L1tan1 R1ver Authority in cooperation with the Un•tcd Nattom. The Southern ht\)hl n In view of this. it seems unlikely that work on the Southern highlands irrigation project can begin before Lebanese authority is restored in the South. But the waters of the Litani have been used to irrigate w1de coastal areas in the South. between Sidon and Tyre, smce 1949, when the Oasm1yeh 1rragation project, initiated in 1947. went on stream ·• The Oasm1yeh irr1gation project remained u~er separate adm1n1stra11on until ·1974. when the Lebal"!ese .Council of Ministers handed it over to the litan1 R1ver Aut'hority. It IO~Oives a small diversion dam. a canal that goes northward towards Sidon and another that goes southward towards Tyre. The project irrrgates 6,000 hectares- mostly citrus orchards north of Oasm1yeh (the name the litani is known by where 11 flows into the sea). All the water used in this network comes from the Litan1, and in the dry summer months, the project is fed with sup~lementary water from Lake Karaoun. DIVERSION It 1S th1s proJect which would be most affected by the divers1on of water from the southern part of the Litani to Israel. Israel, Khoury sa1d, can take Lrtani water by simply pump1ng it out at Kh~1dalr, as last week's reports suggested. or by bu1ld1nq a short tunnel from the same point to the Trber1as depress1on m Upper Galilee, wh1ch would be a s1mple thmg to do tt·chnlcally . "11lat, of course, would b0 a flagrant violation nf Lcbanon 1 s sovereignty and its w;1tcr rights--its right to waters which it is already making full usc of," he said. "The water that Israel would take at that point w,mld be the ~tcr currently being used by tlH· Qasmi.ye irrigation project and by the .Tabal Amcl housdwld water project. Because a tC'\v kilometers downstream from Khardali, the Litanl \v:lter is being pumped up to Taybe, where there is a treatment plant and distributed in the Jabal Amel area." As these pag.:s go to pres~. the U.N. reports that Israel was installing pumps lnterrm Force? in Lebanon (UNIFILl on the Lrtani at a point close to the and the UN. Truce Supervision Khardali bridge, with the apparent Organ1zation !UNTSOl have strll been intention of drawing water for unable to confrrm or deny reports Northern Israel. from South Lebanon that the lsraelrs The spot where the pumps were are rnstallrng pumps on the Lrtani reported is in the so-called "gap" in A rver. UNIFIL lines- an area between The Lebanese government had Taybeand Biatt where the U.N. troops otfrcrally requt!sted information on the have been prevented from deplcvrng. sub1ect from UNIFIL and UNTSO on Press reports quoted travelers from the Monday, April 19. atter week-?nd press lsraeli·controlled Southern border strip as saymg that Israel had declared the Khirdali area a "m1litary zone"· methods to get informat1on on this and blocked ill civilian access to 1t. subject. but nothing definite has been U .N . sources told Monday Morning obtained so far. Until row. all we can last week that U .N. observers. acting say is that there 1s nothmg to indicate on the Lebanese government's request that the reports are true." for information . had asked to ~o to Fayyad added: "Ther!! is no the Khardal1 area and had been turned doubt that Israel wants the waters of down by the rebel Lebanese Army the Litani... Don't forget that they off1cer Saad Haddad. who controls the have already taken control of the border str1p With lsrael1 backong. Wazzan1 R ;ver tn the border strip, Thl! observers. however. have been where direct and ondirect Israeli U~ed to keep tryong untd the matter .s presence 1s tangiboe . We can now safely clarified to the Lebanese government' s cons•der that the waters of the sat1rlactoon Wazzani are go1ng to Israel." Samtr Sano~r. UN. onlorm.Jtoon The Israelis tC>Ok over the Wazzani dtrector lor tn~ M.dd:e East . :old around a year ago. when they set up a Mondily Mornrr.-; on Thursday· "I rmg of mditary pos1to.:>ns around the have not receov":'\l dei.note ,nformat!On Wazzan1 sprtng in the town of Gnajar on !hos Svtlt..Ct trom the UNIFIL and declared the area off lim1ts. command I depend on wnat 1 ~et The L1tani Water Authoflty is now from UNIFIL headquartt!rs Jnd from studying an amb1t1ous proJeCt to U .N observers. Initially, UNIFIL provide the CitY of Oetrut w1th ht!ddquart~rs SJod th~y had no additional drmking water from the onformatoon readdy avallabl~ on the Awwalo River in South Leoanon Sl.oblect and thev would be accord1ng to the chaorman of th~ onvt'S! <)Jt .ng wo!h .JII avaoidb le Author;ty"s board of directors. Kamal resvurces YesterdJy (WednesdJy ), 1 Khoury . WJS "' lbl ~s Saq1 1n the Norwegoan The project. which IS not part of the Jrt'J b ut ot os too far to see from :nere . ortginal Litani scheme. involves the UN IF I L ,Jg.~ o n told mt.' ~ ~s:e r dav thJt construction of a new dam on the !h~y WOI.. I.:l : ry :o C!'1~ck from a c !oser Awwal1. Sote . s:-.ce the posot oon Jt Beaufort ··If 1t is at all possible, it w1ll be a does not .:> t fer adequdt~ J tls.:rvat . o:-~ of very expensive project. because :hat Jr~a .l.ppJrt.>nt ly . c'edrance from the gcologic.JI conditions 1n the area are >ume ;.xao !eaders woi l be recu ored for very •~vmplex." Khoury said . "The th .s. Jnd U ,'IJ ccser,ers ~Jve been pro,ect IS now under final yeoiogocal try ong to OO!d on o: .· · study. and we shoulr (,400/230