The closure of the polluting Bazan oil refineries in the northern city of Haifa will take slightly longer than expected, but the removal of foul-smelling crude oil tanks that back onto homes in the nearby neighborhood of Kiryat Haim will begin this year, according to an update on the state’s massive plan to rehabilitate the city’s sprawling industrial quarter and turn it into a green metropolis that rivals Tel Aviv.
Residents and non-governmental groups have long campaigned for the bay’s heavy industries to be shuttered in light of studies suggesting a link between pollution in the Haifa Bay area and cancer as well as infant disorders such as smaller-than-average heads and relatively low weight.
Three years ago, the cabinet decided to shut down the refineries and its oil storage complex within a decade. A Directorate for the Development of Haifa Bay was created within the Prime Minister’s Office. It designed a work plan through 2030 comprising 101 packages of tasks with schedules and deadlines. Earlier this month, it reported on activities in 2024.
The vision is to transform the bay over the next 20 years into a sustainable area of residential neighborhoods, commerce and employment, clean industry, tourism, and open space. It will remain home to the country’s largest cargo port, two smaller seaports, and a small airport.
But progress depends on the closure of Bazan, and that cannot happen until new infrastructure has been built to import, transport, and store the distillates that the oil refinery produces, ranging from bitumen for road surfaces to waxes, oils, lubricants, and polymers.
View of the Haifa port on July 31, 2022. The oil tanks can be seen in the foreground. (Shir Torem/Flash90)
According to the directorate’s report, work on 33 out of 52 goals did not finish on schedule last year, causing delays of a few months, which is why the closure of Bazan has been pushed off for six months to the first half of 2030.
Yuval Admon, the directorate’s head, told The Times of Israel that staff still intend to meet the original deadlines. The organization has set an aggressive timetable, but working with government and planning authorities has taken time, he added. Funding, he said, was not a factor in the delays.
Negotiations with Bazan, ICL (which operates a fertilizer plant), and Israel Infrastructures, which owns the oil tank farm near Kiryat Haim, are continuing, the report said, with an agreement on the initial removal of nine oil tanks by 2028, starting this year. (Some tanks will only be removed once Bazan has closed).
Aerial view of Haifa Bay showing the main areas of heavy industry. (Google Earth)
Today, the Haifa bay is characterized by a mix of low-tech factories, warehouses, workshops, decrepit buildings, and weed-filled wasteland. Plans are to attract clean industry and business and create some 560,000 new jobs. To this end, the Economy Ministry and the National Economic Council, together with the consulting firm KPMG, have completed a plan to attract more companies, which will be published once it is approved.
A project director has been appointed for a large hi-tech complex envisioned on the banks of the Saadia Stream, and a pumping station has been built there to keep pollutants out of the water.
A park twice the size of Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park
Planning continues for a large metropolitan park, almost twice the size of Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park, which will run alongside the Kishon River and incorporate several tributaries.
An architect’s impression of part of the Nesher Lakes Park being planned east of Haifa in northern Israel. (Nesher Municipality)
At the eastern extreme, the city of Nesher is creating a 500-dunam (123-acre) park around one of many quarries left by the Nesher cement factory. There, groundwater changes have resulted in the formation of two lakes — one freshwater, one salty. These have become wildlife havens. Together with the state Fund for the Restoration of Quarries, the city will soon start building the parks, with a 5,000-seat amphitheater, cycling paths, sports facilities, restaurants, and stores. The project will take two years to build.
On the western edge of the metropolitan park, close to where the Kishon River drains into the sea, infrastructure works on a saltwater marsh have been completed. There, the Kishon River Authority has carried out ecological restoration of previously contaminated sludge ponds, transforming them into the biggest coastal salt marsh in Israel. Accessible hiking trails have been paved. Plans include birdwatching stations and pedestrian bridges linking the islands.
A wild daffodil park will form part of the marsh on the southern bank of the river.
It’s not (only) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we’ll remove all ads from your page and you’ll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.Â
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You’re a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘272776440645465’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
