Swamp Drainage
The draining operations, carried out by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), began in 1951 and were completed by 1958. It was achieved by two main engineering operations: the deepening and widening of the Jordan River downstream; and two newly-dug peripheral canals diverting the Jordan at the north of the valley. The drying out caused the extinction of the unique endemic fauna of the lake including the Hula painted frog Discoglossus nigriventer, cyprinid fish Acanthobrama hulensis and cichlid fish Tristramella intermedia.
Though initially perceived as a great national achievement for Israel, with time it became evident that the benefits from transforming the "wasteland" of Lake Hula and its swamps were limited. In 1963, a small (3.50 km²) area of recreated papyrus swampland in the southwest of the valley was set aside as the country's first nature reserve. Concern over the draining of the Hula was the impetus for the creation of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.
Draining the Hula turned out to be a mixed blessing. Water polluted with chemical fertilizers began flowing into Lake Kinneret, lowering the water quality of its water. The soil, stripped of natural foliage, was blown away by strong winds in the valley, and the peat of the drained swamp ignited spontaneously, causing underground fires that were difficult to extinguish.
Read more about this topic: Hula Valley
Famous quotes containing the word swamp:
“When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal, swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place, a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow, of Nature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)