I was reminded today* of the tragedy at the 1997 Maccabiah Games, where a bridge over this river collapsed and a number of people died. The river it seems was so polluted that people who survived the collapse but swallowed a few mouthfuls of water were still fighting for their lives a long time later.
Has there been much work on the river? Is there a likely date for it to be clean enough to swim or fish in? Is the river’s state an ongoing political issue?
*[sub]Because Michael Klinger - then a star youth cricketer - played a prominent role in Victoria beating South Australia yesterday.[/sub]
I think it’s slightly cleaner than it used to be, but not by much.
You have to remember than the Yarkon is no Mississipi - it’s a very short, very narrow river, not much more than a stream for most of its course. Said course, incidentally, runs almost entirely through Israel’s most desely poulated urban/industrial area. Basically, the river doesn’t stand a chance.
As of now, I haven’t seen fishing in it, let alone swimming. I took my family to the Yarkon Park (not far from the site of the Maccabiah Bridge Disaster, in fact) last weekend, and whenver my son got his hands wet I scrubbed them with sanitizer.
Oh well. At least it doesn’t smell.
The environmental movement in Israel tends to focus on the polution of streams and beaches in general, not just the Yarkon specifically. Most of the political and criminal fallout on the disaster has been over the bridge itself - who approved it and so forth - rather than the river.
The problem, even at the time, was not the chemicals ***in ***the water, but rather the hazmat-s in the river-bed sediments – which were disturbed by the people falling in; it’s maybe 3-4 feet deep, I think, at that point. As Alessan already noted, t’ain’t much of a river…
There was some talk of a large-scale dredging operation to clean up the river bottom. AFAIK it never happened. But there **is **actually some life in the Yarkon, especially further downstream, and just touching the water or even getting a mouthful is not (and was not then) particularly dangerous. Going in and getting the ooze from the bottom all over yourself – definitely VERY bad for you!
It’s really a left-over problem. There is little to no pollution going into the yarkon anymore – certainly none officially sanctioned – and that was the situation back in 1997 too. but in the previous half-century enough dangerous chemicals (mostly all sorts of nasty metals) entered the river, settled to the bottom and never came out. Those are still there and will be very difficult to dredge out. It’s more like an old landfill or asbestos problem – disturb it and it bites you; leave it alone and it just sort of sits there “ticking.”
Both answers so far are informative, thanks. I’m familiar with the idea of toxic sediment - we have lots of sites here with similar problems - and the idea that nasty stuff might get stirred up in a bridge collapse makes sense. I recall there being some scandal about the oversight of bridge design at the time, too.
The **whole **scandal was regarding the bridge construction. It was quite a big scandal, a few heads actually (figuratively) flew – which is no mean feat if you know anything about Israeli politics.
The health problems (and deaths ) suffered by those athletes who fell into the water thereby stirring up the hazardous toxic sediment were, unfortunately, more of a foregone conclusion once they fell in. The toxic nature of the Yarqon riverbed was already well-known, and had already been coming up on an on-and-off basis every few years (the answer always being “we don’t know how to do this cleanup without killing all the fish and vegetation that manage to survive as long as we don’t disturb the sediment.”) Nobody was surprised by the health problems incurred one people fell in the way they did. Of course, nobody planned on anybody going swimming in those waters…
) suffered by those athletes who fell into the water thereby stirring up the hazardous toxic sediment were, unfortunately, more of a foregone conclusion once they fell in. The toxic nature of the Yarqon riverbed was already well-known, and had already been coming up on an on-and-off basis every few years (the answer always being “we don’t know how to do this cleanup without killing all the fish and vegetation that manage to survive as long as we don’t disturb the sediment.”) Nobody was surprised by the health problems incurred one people fell in the way they did. Of course, nobody planned on anybody going swimming in those waters…