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| By: Associated Press |
| Published: January 8, 2006 |
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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, a company official said Sunday.
Palestinian militants 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.
No rockets have fallen near the Mekorot Water Co.'s installation near Ashkelon, but preventively, the company has begun using the far more expensive liquid hypochlorite instead of chlorine gas to disinfect the water supply, said Menachem Nechama, the director of Mekorot's southern division.
"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," causing limited, short-term damage, he said.
German soldiers used chlorine gas during World War I in trench warfare against the French, Nechama said.
Depending on the dosage, exposure to chlorine gas could cause lung damage, and in extreme cases, death, Nechama said. If hypochlorite, which costs seven times as much as chlorine gas, 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. |
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