At 23:37 25/01/02 -0600, Mike wrote:

>Hey Kuty, have you seen this?

Not until you mailed it here :-)

>Navy bans diving in all bodies of water
>
>The Israel Navy yesterday issued a blanket ban on sailors getting into
> coastal and river waters following the Shamgar report on the Kishon
> River.

You have to know the history of this to really understand it.  About a year
ago it hit the headlines here in Israel.  It turned out that too many
Israeli navy divers (and ex-divers) had cancer.  The rate was a lot higher
than the rate in the population or in any other group of people.  Everybody
that had to do anything with the navy could guess that the reason for it
was a lot of training in a polluted river delta (the Kishon river).

It was all over the papers here in Israel.  Interviews with sick ex-divers,
interviews with widows etc.etc.  A special committee was formed and a
retired supreme court judge - Meir Shamgar - was asked to be its chairman.
The main question was whether the Navy had any information about the heavy
metals in the water and the hazards of training there.

>The ban, issued by Admiral Yedidya Ya'ari, who consulted with Chief
>of Staff Shaul Mofaz beforehand, also includes the use of small craft by
>the navy in the coastal waters and in rivers. Ya'ari said the Shamgar
>commission investigation into the pollution in the Kishon River and its
>impact on frogmen training in those waters, left him no choice.

Actually it's quite amazing that nobody did anything up till now.  The
Kishon river was so polluted by heavy industries in the Haifa bay that even
when you drove on one of the bridges that crossed it, you could hardly
breathe.

Anyway, I did two dives in the Haifa bay yesterday :-)
As we are not a part of the navy, we can still dive ;-)  although I would
never set foot in the water they were diving in.

BTW, the dives were great.  The Haifa bay is in the Mediterranean but the
vis there is usually better than the typical Med. 5 meters on a good day
:-).  Yesterday we had a mediocre visibility for this area (about 10
meters) and the water was as cold as the Med. on our side can get: 16C.  My
old semi dry 5mm suit has got a few small holes in it and the face and
ankle seals are somewhat torn so I felt the water :-).  Not too much but at
the end of the second dive I was quite eager to get back to the hot shower
on the beach.

>The navy says no such criteria exist and the total ban is a way of
>pressuring the appropriate authorities - presumably the Health Ministry
>and the Environmental Affairs Ministry - to quickly establish those
>criteria.

See, it's all a war of bureaucrats :-)

Regards,

                Kuty