Israeli-Palestinian Team Studies Local Water
Israeli-Palestinian Team Studies Local Water
February 27, 2013
A group of Israeli and Palestinian environment Researchal researchers, led by Prof. Alon Tal of BGU’s Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, are working together to test the area’s water supply for potentially health-altering endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
“While people – and even their farm animals – continue to consume more and more medicines and chemicals, the effect of these substances once they have passed through the body and into the country’s water system are unknown,” says Prof. Tal.
Up until now no one in Israel or the Palestinian Authority had been looking for the presence of these chemicals or their effects in a systematic way.
“Now we are on the hunt for the smoking gun,” says Prof. Tal. “It is my hypothesis that Israel’s enthusiasm for water reuse has grave implications.”
Prof. Alon Tal has received a three-year, $560,000 grant from the USAID’s Middle East Regional Cooperation (MERC) Program to conduct the project. BGU graduate students will conduct the bulk of the laboratory testing in Israel’s Health Ministry labs.
The Palestinian contingent includes water engineer Nader al-Khateeb, who also serves as Palestinian director of Friends of the Earth Middle East; Dr. Alfred Abed Rabbo, an assistant professor at Bethlehem University’s Water and Soil Research Unit; Dr. Shai Armon; and a group of Palestinian students.
“I really believe that this is the cutting edge in environment Researchal health research,” says Prof. Tal. “Because Israel is the world leader in waste-water reuse, we have a responsibility to monitor this in terms of human health.”
Read more on The Jerusalem Post Web site >>
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