The River Jordan is Chilly & Cold--and Polluted

One of my children is named after St. John the Baptist. So when an article appeared in this week's edition of The Catholic Voice about the serious pollution of the Jordan River, I passed it along.

To my grateful surprise, said child was actually interested and read it.

Besides being the traditional baptismal place of Jesus by St. John, solving the problem of the Jordan River requires the cooperation of Israel, Palestine, and Jordan.

Friends of the Earth Middle East, one of the few successful partnerships between Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians, has recently stepped up its efforts to bring the Jordan River’s sorry state to world attention. One July publicity stunt saw Jewish and Arab mayors from local municipalities jumping into the clean part of the river, hand in hand.

“Water can be a bridge for peace,” Nader Khateeb, the organization’s Palestinian director, told a group representing 200 nongovernmental organizations during a Sept. 27 seminar at the United Nations.

“The water resources are so scarce in the Middle East that we have to work together with our Israeli neighbors in order to help guarantee that we as Palestinians get our fair share of water and all together stop the pollution of the water resource."

One of the problems is agricultural. Governments have encouraged farmers to grow crops that are water-intensive in a desert environment. (A problem we have here in California as well.) This diverts clean water from the river, reducing the flow into the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Any runoff that returns to the river is polluted with pesticides and herbicides.

Resolving the pollution problem could be could be an important step in creating peace in the region. I hope so.