International Water Industry Conference Stirs Controversy

A conference for water-industry professionals scheduled this month in Venice, Italy, has landed at the center of an international political debate.

The event is the Water Technology and Environmental Control Exhibition and Conference, known in the industry as WATEC Italy 2016. The conference is organized by Kenes Exhibitions, which is based in Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Around 40 “trade unions, environmental groups and human rights networks are demanding that the European Commission withdraw its support” from the conference, according to the report. The groups claimed the conference “violates international law,” according to WAFA, a Palestinian news agency.

The protesters take issue with Israeli water policy and with Israeli companies they see as complicit in those policies.

“By granting patronage to events sponsored by and involving companies and institutions operating in Israeli settlements, the European Commission is at odds with the European Union’s own official position on settlements. Even worse, it legitimates and encourages illegal activities that trample fundamental rights such as access to water, thereby reinforcing Israel’s impunity,” the letter said.

“Through its patronage for WATEC, the commission is also giving credibility to the myth of the Israeli water miracle, which was built on the appropriation of Palestinian water resources and the denial of a fundamental right, misleading participating European companies and public opinion,” it continued.

WATEC organizers did not provide a response to The Jerusalem Post, according to the report.

NPR provides some backdrop on how Israel has approached its constant battle with dry weather:

Israel has long sought solutions to the threat of drought. Commercial desalination began in the 1970s in the city of Eilat, on the Red Sea. The first desalination technology used there, in a short-lived pilot project, froze water to remove the salt, then melted it to make fresh water. But Israel seriously embraced desalination in the late 1990s, after a particularly bad drought. The government decided to build five new plants along the Mediterranean, as fast as it could.

To read more about drought visit Water Online’s Source Water Scarcity Solutions Center.