The first action the factories are taking is extracting the minerals and mud from the sea. The factories are building small shallow pools on the southern part of the sea. The Sea has become separated into two parts connected by a small water pass due to an overuse and evaporation of its water. The southern Part is more preferable to build those pools since the natural physical characteristics don’t require as much work as in the northern part.
Illustration of how a worker in India extracts extract the salts from the slat pans.(3)
A description on how the Mud is being naturally produced by the website “Seacret”: “The mud is produced from the banks of the Dead Sea has become famous around the world because of its healing capacities in stress relief, releasing painful muscles and healing rheumatic pains. The organic mud, black in color (which in its natural form is characterized by a sharp smell) is made up of layers of the mountain soil and silt from the waters of the Jordan River and the springs, and it has sunk deep into the lake”. The strong smell is due to the high amounts of Sulfur, one of the many minerals in the area.Thea Dead sea has over 300 sunny days per year, along the hot climate and scarcity of rain in the desert bring the water to fast evaporation. This natural process saves the factories another step of extracting the minarets by saving them the time to artificially evaporate the water. All is left for the workers to do is bring a shovel and a bulldozer and bring the hard soil to the next step of processing.
However, There has been a bad side to this act of extraction which is overuse and degradation of the soil. The dead sea has lost almost 30 meters of its sea level for the past 40 years (“Israeli water authority”). The fast lose of the sea level is because Israel is using its main water drainage the “sea of Galilee” as a source of fresh water for the entire nation. The climate change bring less and less rain to the area to help rise its sea level.
source: Israeli water authority.(4)
When the soil loses its moisture it is left with high concentration of salts in it,thus, becomes dry, hard and breakable. It leads to another dangerous situation: the creating of sinkholes ,one can simply walk along the coast and fall dozens of feet down the earth,literally “being swallowed by the earth”. For the past 15 more than 1000 such sinkholes have been created and demanded the lives of several people. Nevertheless, there is a light point by the end of the tunnel, just few months ago Israel and Jordan have signed a a contract to revive the sea with an infrastructure which will bring fresh water from the Red sea from the south to the Dead sea in the North.(Suleiman Al-Khalidi,2015).
Sinkholes near the Dead Sea.(5)