Israel’s month-long desalination crisis has reached a turning point: all five plants that were forced offline by a massive microalgae bloom are now operating at least partially, alongside the Hadera plant, which never stopped running. But officials are cautioning that a full return to normal operations, and the underlying vulnerability the episode exposed, will take considerably longer to resolve.
The disruption began roughly two weeks ago when a bloom of microscopic algae, believed to have originated near Egypt’s Nile Delta and carried north by Mediterranean currents, clogged pretreatment and reverse-osmosis systems at the Ashkelon, Ashdod, Sorek A, Sorek B and Palmachim plants. Only Hadera, further north along the coast, escaped the bloom entirely. At the peak of the disruption, five of Israel’s six major desalination facilities — which together typically supply the large majority of the country’s drinking water — were shut down or running at sharply reduced capacity.
Households protected, agriculture absorbed the impact
Throughout the crisis, Israel’s Water Authority and national water carrier Mekorot prioritized household and industrial supply by drawing more heavily on the Sea of Galilee and groundwater aquifers. That strategy kept taps running normally for most residents, though it came at a cost: earlier reporting found the Sea of Galilee had lost roughly a billion gallons of stored water as authorities leaned on the lake to bridge the gap. Agriculture bore the brunt of the disruption directly, with regional councils in the Negev and southern Israel ordering farmers to halt irrigation for extended periods.
Energy Minister Eli Cohen has said repairing membrane damage across the affected plants could cost tens of millions of shekels, since the intensity and duration of the bloom pushed reverse-osmosis membranes — normally rated for around seven years of service — toward premature failure. Officials now plan to build a reserve stockpile of replacement membranes so future blooms don’t force plants offline for lack of spare parts.
A longer-term fix: moving the water intakes
Beyond the immediate repair costs, the episode has pushed Israeli water officials toward a more structural response. The government has said it will look at extending desalination plants’ seawater intake pipes further offshore, into waters less likely to be affected by coastal algae blooms and turbidity events. That would mark a physical redesign of infrastructure that, according to a 2023 State Comptroller audit, was already flagged for lacking a completed national water-sector master plan.
The bloom’s scale was unusual enough that Israeli marine scientists described it as unlike anything observed in the region in twenty to thirty years, according to the Water Authority’s own emergency response staff. Whether the extended-intake approach becomes standard practice at Israel’s other coastal plants, or whether the country instead leans further on strategic reserves like the Sea of Galilee and its aquifers, is likely to shape how the country’s next national water plan is written.