San Diego (special) -- The plan of Ronald Lauder, U.S. president of the Jewish National Fund, to construct 100 reservoirs in the Negev to stave off a water crisis in Israel needs major modifications, according to Prof. Eilon Adar, director of Ben Gurion University's prestigious institute on water.

Lauder, who also serves as chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, has been raising funds throughout the country as part of a crash program to finance construction of the reservoirs, without which he says Israel will run out of water by 2012.

Adar said Lauder's estimate is based on Israel's "developed supply" of water, but fails to take into account a vast store of water that has been trapped under the Negev Desert since the Ice Age. This untapped "paleo water" is like oil in that it can be brought to the surface by drilling wells, and then put into use, he said. 

The Ben Gurion University professor said that Israel and the Palestinian Territories together consume about two billion cubic meters of water a year. He estimated that there is as much as 150 billion cubic meters of water in aquifers deep below the desert floor.

Deep wells to bring this water to the surface can cost in excess of $1 million each, a price tag similar to that for each of the surface reservoirs that Lauder contemplates having the JNF build.

Adar met with HERITAGE on Dec. 19 at a small luncheon hosted by Dr. Howard and Lottie Marcus at their Rancho Bernardo home. Philip Gomperts, regional director of the American Associates of Ben Gurion University, and Ellen Barnett of Rancho Bernardo also were in attendance.

The water expert said he believes it would be a mistake to build 100 surface reservoirs because surface water will evaporate quickly in the desert, leaving behind a muddy sediment. He said it would be better to build "detention reservoirs" which delay flood water on its course from the mountains to the sea, slowing the water enough to permit it to percolate through the desert floor to the aquifer below.

The idea, he said, would be to permit the flood water to just reach Israel's coast, without ever going all the way to the sea.

Adar said by having the water stored below the surface of the Negev, evaporation is kept to a minimum. Furthermore, water withdrawn from the aquifer would be replenished, extending the life of the resource.

Furthermore, he said, "we cannot afford the land for building huge reservoirs in the coastal plain of Israel. Where we can afford the land, there is no water to fill them up with."

Lauder has said a system of 100 reservoirs will serve to extend Israel's dev

Adar agreed in the HERITAGE interview that desalinization was the long range answer. But he noted that, especially with energy costs rising, it is easier and less expensive to de-ionize the kind of brackish water found in the desert, with only four grams of salt per cubic meter, compared to desalinizing sea water which has 35 grams of salt per cubic meter.

Ben Gurion University's Institute on Water is located in Sde Boker, almost adjacent to the area where the body of Israel's founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion is buried.