ADVERTISEMENT
Building Jerusalem’s Fifth Pipeline
Excavations for the tunneled segment of the fifth pipeline to Jerusalem.
D
6 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Micky Elisha: I’m a civil engineer and have worked for Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, since 2000. I was always attracted to huge infrastructure project companies, so Mekorot was a natural choice. Working for Mekorot over the years has been fascinating. Israel has long suffered from a lack of natural water sources and from drought. As Mekorot is the company responsible for water supply throughout the country, our main challenge was to face these problems on a national level, which we have been able to do thanks to our innovative and sophisticated solutions. I started off at Mekorot as a maintenance engineer for pipelines and buildings, later moving on to the project development division. At first, I worked on smaller projects, for example, building small pipes to supply water to small towns for local municipal consumption. I was then lucky enough to be appointed to manage the fifth pipeline project, which began in May 2009. The project is interesting from an engineering and technical perspective—it’s a vast project that involves transporting ground water and desalinated seawater to
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MEKOROT.
ue to population increase, the city of Jerusalem is reaching the limits of its current water supply. To resolve this issue, Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, is building a 25-mile pipeline, between 80 and 102 inches in diameter, to provide the city with water from both underground sources and desalination plants on the Mediterranean coast. As the water mostly comes from sea level and Jerusalem lies half a mile above sea level, the entire pipeline system must be pressurized at 290 to 580 pounds per square inch (psi) to deliver the water. This enormous project was first envisioned in the 1990s and is finally reaching completion, with the first water deliveries expected in 2021. In this interview, Micky Elisha, the project manager for Mekorot’s pipeline project, tells Municipal Water Leader about the process of planning, designing, and constructing this vital piece of national infrastructure. Municipal Water Leader: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
