Zalul : State of the Sea Report 2009 is out!

State of the Sea Report 2009 is out!

Shahar Brinenberg

This year the report seeks to inform decision makers and the Israeli public about polluters that discharge wastewater into the sea, yet somehow continue to receive benefits derived from state grants and the treasury. Even more disturbing is the fact that these polluters benefit from taxpayer funded enterprises. The public should be concerned - they are paying the price for the pollution.

Although maintaining trust can provide benefits to companies, factories and sewage treatment facilities are careful to clarify that there are threshold conditions for benefits, such as a commitment to maintaining the welfare worker labor laws. However, in practice, field results indicate that there is no proper tactic to avoid environmental pollution. This pessimistic approach provides incentive for mismanagement of natural resources as well as marine and coastal life. Effectively, this benefits industrial plants, which the state of Israel justifies, sometimes even regardless of the environmental pollution they cause.

The report also displays Zalul's models and calculations that help to create an appropriate mechanism for examining both the benefits and consequences of companies while taking their negative impact on the marine environment into consideration. The model suggests that access will benefit enterprises which invested resources in the prevention of pollution as opposed to enterprises that refrain from doing so.

Zalul's approach lies in the belief that any transfer of public funds to industry requires internalizing indirect costs in environmental issues. However, manufacturers and occasionally government offices often ignore this. Any decision on the financial investment by the state economic project will have to give major consideration to environmental feasability and if there are intrinsic negative consequences that could be hazardous to the environment and/or public health. Zalul believes this model will serve as a reference for decision makers and various government ministries. Internalization of environmental parameters will enable a more just distribution of resources according to the influence of business activity on the environment.