Half a year ago Zalul appealed to the Regional Court in Haifa against the Sea Spillage Permit Committee and their decision to renew the permit for discharging sewage via the ALA Pipeline which resulted in more sewage being discharged to the sea.

As a result of the dismissal of the Zalul's petition three months ago by Haifa's Regional Court, , an appeal was made to the upper court, requesting to receive an in-depth hearing at the Regional Court and that this time around the judges decision be stated clearly and the logic behind it explained.

The Supreme Court accepted Zalul's position on the issue and ordered the Regional Court of Haifa to have another hearing on the issue.

Background:

The ALA Pipeline Terminal, situated in the Gulf of Acco, was developed six years ago and has not worked since the day it's construction was completed.  In the aftermath of the decision by the Sea Spillage Permit Committee in February 2006, in which various factories were permitted to discharge sewage via the ALA Pipeline directly to the Gulf of Acco, the terminal finally began to work for the first time. After a number of months, the committee gave the ALA Company permission to discharge the sewage of every permitted factory - resulting in the discharge of industrial sewage in large amounts to the waters of the Gulf of Acco.

According to Attorney Oren Tenenbaum, Zalul's legal advisor, "We are happy with the decision of the Supreme Court to return to the hearing on the topic of the ALA Pipeline to the Regional Court in order to possibly establish a worthy discussion on the poor fashion in which the Sea Spillage Committee is being conducted. The committee gave a permit while it lacked the authority to do so and now this irresponsible behavior can finally be discussed in the Regional Court. We are convinced that the Regional Court will end the pollution in the Haifa Bay and will examine the actions of the Sea Spillage Committee."