Rocket risk halts Israeli water process

Aljazeera (AP)

Sunday 08 January 2006, 12:59 Makka Time, 9:59 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ABC91A9F-206C-49AC-B6F3-DA6FCE0FC00E.htm

Israel's water company has stopped injecting chlorine gas at a facility near
the Gaza Strip for fear that Palestinian-fired rockets would hit tanks
holding the potentially deadly substance.

Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza have launched rockets that have
landed near sensitive installations outside the southern Israeli city of
Ashkelon in recent
weeks, including a power plant and fuel depot.

Menachem Nechama, director of Mekorot Water's southern division, said no
rockets have fallen near the company's installation near Ashkelon, but
preventively, the company has begun using the more expensive liquid
hypochlorite instead of chlorine gas to disinfect the water supply.

"If chlorine gas is hit in a terror attack, it is environmentally toxic,"
Nechama said. "If liquid hypochlorite is hit, it spills into the ground." He
said that this causes only limited, short-term damage.

German soldiers used chlorine gas during the first world war in trench
warfare against the French, Nechama said.

Depending on the dosage, exposure to chlorine gas can cause lung damage, and
in extreme cases, death. If hypochlorite were to spill, "then I imagine in
that place,
plants won't grow for several weeks", but there would be no other effect, he
said.