JERUSALEM, Jan. 13 (JTA) — Israel has a new set of environmental woes. Environmental officials here warned this week of pending disaster at the Hiriya dump site in central Israel. Experts said deep cracks in the mountain of rubbish had been discovered after recent rains, which sent garbage tumbling down its slopes. An El Al pilot said in an Israel Radio interview that, given the dump’s proximity to Ben-Gurion Airport, birds attracted to the dump could cause air disasters if sucked into plane engines. For years, Israeli environmentalists have warned against impending catastrophe, pointing toward decades of unfettered growth. They warn that air pollution in Israel’s major cities is reaching dangerous new levels, landfills are overflowing, water is growing scarcer and open spaces are rapidly disappearing under asphalt and encroaching urbanization. They also note that virtually all of Israel’s rivers are either partially or heavily polluted. The pollution of Israel’s rivers was highlighted last summer, when two Australian athletes, who fell with dozens of others from a collapsed bridge during Israel’s Maccabiah Games, died after swallowing water from the polluted Yarkon River that runs through Tel Aviv.
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