A water park, adjacent to one of Israel's largest power plants, will utilize
water from the power plant to create a huge recreational site.
by Daniella Ashkenazy
Most river reclamation projects await a solution to pollution before
commencing rehabilitation. A new water park in Israel puts the cart before
the horse - mobilizing an alternate water source to cleanse a spoiled river
channel: warm seawater expelled by the cooling system of a nearby power
plant's giant turbines. This ingenious feat of hydraulic engineering is
about to turn the site into the world's biggest "bathtub" - a huge
year-round water park.
The $6 million project, a complex three-year endeavor scheduled to open this
coming summer, reclaims a stretch of the Hadera watercourse - a narrow lazy
river that empties into the Mediterranean halfway between Haifa and Tel
Aviv. Construction was carried out by the Jewish National Fund, a body best
known for its 95-year endeavors in planting and maintaining Israel's
forests.
Plan for the Hadera Park
The riverbed was widened from six to 40 meters to form a ribbon of water
that extends 1.3 km upstream, banked by a decorative retaining wall
constructed out of one-square-meter wire "cages" filled with rocks. When the
park opens, visitors will be able to rent boats, sit and dip their feet in
the water or stroll on paths and across foot-bridges along the banks.
A later stage of the park's design calls for the addition of a series of
huge artificial lagoons for bathers with water slides and other amusements.
The lagoons will be flanked by other recreation facilities such as
restaurants, camping grounds, an open-air amphitheater, hiking trails and a
riding stable.
The "heart" of the water park is a system of giant pipes (two meters in
diameter) that pump the seawater from the power station to various parts of
the water park. The system works, explains Emanuel Kaufstein, chief engineer
of the project, because "after cooling the turbines, the temperature of the
water is 10' C above temperatures in the sea. In the winter, the warmed
seawater will stay approximately 24' C."
A 17-meter-high embankment separates the water park from the power plant.
The barrier shields the park from the noise and ugliness of its imposing
"neighbor". In addition, the embankment is an environmental feat, blending
aesthetics with environmental concerns: it was constructed from 620,000
cubic meters (!) of coal ash that had become a mounting ecological nuisance.
Covered with soil, it is now being landscaped with shrubbery and a paved
promenade, accented by a series of four decorative waterfalls which will
tumble from the embankment into the river.
Construction entailed challenging hydraulic engineering problems. Some were
generated by the sheer scope of the project, which will siphon off and
re-route 16,000 of the 160,000 cubic meters of water expelled by the power
plant. "The water exits the plant and enter the park's circulation system at
2.6 meters above sea level. Thus, the seawater will flow back into the sea
by natural gravitation," clarifies Kaufstein. Other challenges stemmed from
conditions at the construction site - a high water table just below the
surface, exacerbated by the weight of the mammoth ramp. "It was like
building a structure on a bed of margarine," describes Kaufstein
graphically.
A low dam prevents polluted waters from entering the rehabilitated section
of the river course. The river's contaminated waters are re-routed
underground to the point of exit of the power station cooling system. "The
water rushing out of the plant creates turbulence extending some 300 meters
out into the sea," explains Kaufstein. "Thus, pollutants are automatically
diluted to meet strict Ministry of Health standards, ending present
contamination of nearby beaches."
The Hadera park constitutes both a technological and psychological
breakthrough: First, there is no other place in the world where warmed water
generated by turbine cooling systems is utilized for recreational purposes.
Second, the project brought together environmentalists and an electric power
manufacturer to generate successfully maximum good out of some of the
unavoidable ills of modem living.