Modern Glare in Jordan Valley

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 620, 23 March 1929, Page 18

Modern Glare in Jordan Valley

■N the river Jordan, half an hour’s journey south of the Sea of Galilee, steady progress is being made in the construction of a great hydro-electric power station that will usher in a new economic era for the Holy Land. Under the supervising genius of a former Russian revolutionary leader, tPinhas Rutenberg, head of the Odessa police during the Kerensky regime, the storied stream of Bible times is to he made to produce 300,000 horsepower of energy for new Palestine’s farms, homes and factories. Its economically exploitable reserves of energy are in its ivater resources. Whoever has control of these resources can monopolise the driving force of industry and of agriculture, and can influence the development of the country from an economic point of view. Rutenberg is in that position. Backed by the Zionist Organisation he secured the concession for the sole exploitation of these

resources and for the supply of electricity for all Palestine, with the exception of Jerusalem, the government having reserved control of the prices of electric current over and above a certain minimum, and a share in the profits. The scheme Rutenberg is trying to realise is to use the differences of level to be found along the course of the Jordan from the Lake of Merom to the Dead Sea, starting w*ith the stretch between the Sea of Galilee and Djisr. Along this stretch of about ten miles there is a drop of 150 feet. A little later, in Djisr, in the Rutenberg domain proper, down in a rocky hollow, the river comes into view again Acroos the Yarmuk. which coming from an easteily direction here flows into the Jordan, the scaffolding of a dam twenty-five feet high may be seen. This dam. now almost completed, is to force up the waters of the river to a height of fifty feet above the level of the Sea of Galilee into a giant

reservoir naturally formed by the hilly character of the^-egion. Opposite, across the Jordan. a second dam is being built. This, when completed, is also to force back the waters of the Jordan and to collect them in a reservoir. The picturesque valley bed will then be drained, the Jordan diverted for a short distance from its natural course, and from its reservoir conducted through a canal, already partly dug, into the Yarmuk reservoir. Industry and agriculture in Palestine are at present both suffering under the exceptionally high price of electric current and impatiently await the moment when the Jordan will supply them with cheap motive power. The work is to be completed by the end of 1929. Rutenberg assumes that the 24,000 horsepower will readily find consumers and that before long he will be able to start building the second power station near Abadije. which is to generate the same amount of energy.