By Hana Namrouqa

DEAD SEA - Construction on a $10 billion project designed to provide the Kingdom with much-needed freshwater and save the Dead Sea from constant shrinking is expected to kick off late next year.

Establishment of the "Jordan National Red Sea Water Development Project" (JRSP) was announced on Sunday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the presence of His Majesty King Abdullah.

The project aims at addressing the country's severe water shortage, by providing 120 million cubic metres (mcm) of water annually in its first phase by the year 2014 and expanding to 700mcm annually in later phases, a private sector consultant said.

"Construction on the project, which entails five phases and will be built on a BOT basis, is expected to be completed within 25-30 years," Skip Holland, senior vice president and managing executive of MWH Global, the project's managing company, said.

Private sector companies will carry out the project with the support of the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission, while funding of the project is still under examination, he added.

"The first phase includes taking water from the Red Sea through pipelines to a desalination facility which will be built in Aqaba," Holland told The Jordan Times yesterday during an interview.

Water generated from the desalination plant will be distributed to Aqaba and the development projects in the area, Holland added.

"Eventually, the water will be connected with the Disi Project water carrier to deliver water to Amman," he noted.

Meanwhile, the brine from the desalination plant will be discharged through pipelines into the Dead Sea to limit the decline in its water levels, according to Holland.

Holland said despite the similarity between the goals of the JRSP and the Red-Dead Canal Project, which also seeks to generate freshwater and save the Dead Sea from shrinking, the two projects will be carried out simultaneously.

"The JRSP is planned so it can begin immediately, it will not be abandoned if they [the government] choose to carry out the Red-Dead Canal Project," Holland explained.

"We have been asked by the Water Ministry to begin immediately because the need is immediate, the need to deliver water is now," he noted.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Water and Irrigation Secretary General Maysoun Zu'bi said the JRSP "is not a replacement for the Red-Dead Canal Project".

"The project is Jordanian and will be built on Jordanian land… The World Bank environmental and feasibility studies of the Red-Dead Canal Project are vital for our scheme," Zu'bi said in remarks to the press yesterday.

The Red-Dead Canal Project is part of international efforts to save the Dead Sea, which has been shrinking at the rate of one metre per year, largely due to the diversion of water from the Jordan River for agricultural and industrial use.

During the past 20 years alone, it has plunged more than 30 metres, with experts warning that it could dry up within the next 50 years.

The project's feasibility study and the environmental impact assessment were launched in May last year and their final results are expected to be announced by the end of next year.