Impending Doom

Driving along airport road you will see giant 4-foot diameter pipes lining the road. Workers are digging ditches to put the pipes in. This scene stretches on for miles and miles, until eventually you stop noticing it; they simply blend into the desert landscape.

These pipes are part of a huge project undertaken by the Jordanian government to help solve the water situation in Jordan. 250 miles south, near the Saudi border sits a deep-sea aquifer. This aquifer is set to pump fresh groundwater all those miles, through endless stretches of pipes to Amman to help offset the water crisis.

But how long will it hold out?

This water is renewable—but only if properly maintained. Maintenance has been a problem in the past, as the once beautiful Azraq wetlands were pumped dry. Now, water flows out of Amman back to the wetlands to try and preserve what’s left.

The Dead Sea is also shrinking. By a meter a year. There is already a stretch of land dividing the sea into two parts. Some say it will be gone in 50 years. One solution is the Red Sea-Dead Sea canal. A multi-million dollar project that is set to pump water from the red sea, across miles and miles to the Dead Sea, would alter the salinity of this lake.  Is “saving it” worth it?

What I have learned in Amman is a sad realization. This region isn’t going to be able to last much longer without having a war over water. The Nile is not going to sustain Egypt past 2017. Jordan is fast running out of freshwater. The gulf countries can only sustain reverse osmosis as long as the oil money holds out—they have 0 natural water resources. Syria and Israel are diverting water from the Jordan River-leaving it a pathetic trickle—only a fraction of what it was.

Yet there is a dichotomy. Shopkeepers freely wash off their tiled stoops, the soapy water runs off into the streets. People wash their cars daily, making sure they are extra shiny. People have gardens, watering their roses, their grass or their tomatoes.

It’s a status symbol, being able to have enough water to do this.

Yet it’s still sad that people here are so ignorant about the pressing situation. And that is one of the things I find so frustrating about this country. No one knows. And more importantly, no one cares enough to find out.

It’s on the horizon, a war, a catastrophe, and I can see it coming, but no one else even looks up.