The water level in Lake Kinneret dropped two meters this year, the Water Authority said Thursday, a steeper annual drop than in any previous year.

The hydrological year ended on September 30 with the Kinneret at 214.05 meters below sea level, down from its height of 212.05 meters below sea level reached on April 3.

The Kinneret's "black line," newly coined this year, is 214.87 meters below sea level. When the black line is reached, the pumps in the lake are exposed to the air, and they can no longer send water into the National Water Carrier.

In July, the lake dropped below the "red line," at which the concentration of pollutants rises to undesirable levels.

Since spring 2004 the Kinneret has lost 5.13 meters, which is equivalent to 850 million cubic meters of water, the authority said. That is roughly equivalent to an entire year's worth of household water use.

This was the fourth consecutive year of dwindling rainfall and the forecast for the next couple of years is just as bleak.

The Water Authority has focused its efforts on two main goals. In the short term, a massive water conservation PR campaign has been launched. "Going from red to black" - a reference to the lake's dropping water levels - has appeared on billboards, on the Internet and on TV.

The Water Authority has also produced a series of commercials which depict a woman and her house drying up and cracking to hammer home the point. The authority says the campaign has achieved significant results since its launch over the summer.

In the medium to long-term, funds have been allocated to expand desalination efforts from the current level of 130 million cubic meters per year to 750 million cubic meters per year by the middle to end of the next decade. Plants in Ashkelon and Palmahim will soon be joined by one in Hadera next year and two more by 2012.

Desalination represents Israel's best hope for drinking water as rainfall has been diminishing. Environmentalists have raised concerns because desalination plants require a fair amount of electricity.

However, as more and more of Israel's electricity comes from renewable sources like solar power, that concern might be mitigated. Moreover, the desalination plants in Ashkelon and Palmahim employ reverse osmosis - the most efficient and least intrusive desalination method in the world. The plant in Hadera and likely all future plants will also use this method.

Additional efforts include reclaiming almost all of the country's sewage for agricultural purposes. Right now, 75 percent of sewage water is treated and the authority aims to bring that to close to 100%.

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