Thousands gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square Saturday night to protest the planned location of the Noble Energy gas processing platform serving the Leviathan gas reservoir only nine kilometers from Israel’s coast.
Headed by the Shomrei HaBayit (Home Guards) movement, protesters argued that the proposed location will destroy the sea, as well as irrevocably damage the health of people living near the coast.
A primary concern is said to be the unavoidable production of the carcinogenic benzene in the energy production process.
Protesters called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) and Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) to “stop the catastrophe” and reverse the government decision.
Environmentalists, local authorities and NGOs have been waging a campaign to have the platform moved 125 kilometers away from the coast, citing environmental and public health concerns.
The demonstrators also noted that the Houston-based Noble Energy company, which will operate the platform, has a terrible track record when it comes to pollution.
The government has maintained a position that security concerns require the platform to be built close to Israel’s coast.
High school students who attended the demonstration stated that they were intending to miss their first day of the school year and create a human chain across Israel’s coast on Sunday in protest of the planned platform.
Shomrei HaBayit argued that in similar projects around the world, such oil platforms are located roughly 120 kilometers off the coast. They further emphasized that it makes little sense to place the platforms so close to the shore when the gas reservoir itself is 130 kilometers from the shore.
The group said that by placing the platform directly above the reservoir, the entire production process would be simpler and cleaner as there would be no need to add anti-freeze materials to move the gas further from the production site, toxic byproducts would be poured back into the reservoir rather than dumped into the sea and – in the case of a malfunction – the damage caused to marine life and those living along the coast would be less intensive.
In addition, Shomrei HaBayit pointed to the lack of experience Israel has in such projects, as well as to the pollution caused by the existing gas processing platform Tamar, which produces 30 times more toxic materials than originally predicted.
