Qaṭṭāra as Chernobyl

The Qaṭṭāra is a basin like the Dead Sea's on the other, western side of the Nile. It's flatter: the basin floor is about 60 km below sealevel, 150 m at deepest. The sea there dried up, I think, even before the Predynastic era.

If you haven't gathered yet, 'tis a death valley. Nobody lives there because they can't. There have been thoughts to connect it with the Mediterranean. This new inland sea would offer that bit more habitable area to arid north Africa - not just to men but also to ducks and herons. The water evaporate therefrom might, further, add to the moisture available to Egypt's hilly east and especially Sinai. Presently Egypt claims the depression in its Matruh "governorate".

The surveyor John Ball in 1927 time hit on a grand idea: use it for hydroelectric power. Water comes in from the north; it spins turbines; the water dries up in the basin; more water comes in. They projected 35 years to fill the basin. Even then I expect the turbines could run forever, given the evaporation, perhaps at lower speed / intensity; but still sufficient to power the industries and homes around the new sea itself. The most (in)famous proposal was Bassler's in the late 1960s, requesting 213 bombs each 50 times Hiroshima's power. Abdel Nasser, despite being expansionist, didn't like that idea much and attacked Israel instead.

I heard about this massive public-works programme maybe ten years ago but didn't post about it. My reason: salt. Bassler did protect the Mediterranean water from further evaporation by running it down a tunnel. But eventually the water must end up in the Qaṭṭāra. The sea ends up one more hypersaline dead sea in the Near East, whose salt deposits must blow over to the lower Nile and kill it. I mean, just look at the toxic salt flats around Urmia in Iran today. If Ball had been allowed to do his work then by 1970, I think, Egyptians would have started cursing their fathers like they were cursing Nasser for losing that war.

Thankfully, thanks to Wiki: here's Maher Kelada's 2010 idea to desalinate part of the new Qaṭṭāra sea. The brine is sequestered in half the lake, and mined for the salts that brine is mined for. Salt doesn't collect to blast the Nile. I wish I'd known about it then or I'd have posted then.

As for why Kelada's project hasn't been acted on: at a guess, the project looks vulnerable to terrorists and to whatever geopolitical enemies lower Egypt may get. Most of all: to crooks, careerists, incompetents, and Soviets... to the degree I'm not confusing the four (like Nasser sure did). If the osmosis project is damaged or poisoned, someone gotta clean it up. Or else the salty sandstorm comes to Egypt.