The national electric company is moving ahead with plans to erect massive pylons for a high voltage cable that will cut through the first park ever established in Israel by the KKL-JNF Jewish National Fund and will require cutting down hundreds of trees, some of them more than 100 years old.
Hulda Forest, around ten kilometers (six miles) southeast of the city of Rehovot in central Israel, was planted in 1907 to commemorate Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, who had died three years earlier.
Covering some 200 dunams (50 acres) and visited by some 300,000 to 400,000 people annually, it was the country’s first center for forestry. It includes an old house named for Herzl (although he never lived there), recreation areas, memorials, and a hiking trail.
In the 1980s, planners earmarked a corridor for electricity infrastructure, and in the 1990s, after approval of a National Outline Plan in 1991, pylons carrying a high voltage line were put up there — three in the forest, at least six along the Shaham stream and additional ones in open areas.
Now, the Israel Electricity Corporation (IEC) wants to build a second high-voltage cable, along with a new set of pylons, parallel to the old ones, to help it meet the country’s growing power demand and bring renewable energy produced in southern Israel to the densely populated central region.
Both the KKL and the regional council want the cable to be buried and/or relocated to Route 6, the trans-Israel highway, just a few kilometers away.
A section of olive grove has been cleared for a new pylon to carry a high voltage electricity cable. (Courtesy, Gezer Regional Council)
The two power stations that will be connected by the new cable, Gezer and Tsafit, are also next to Route 6.
Furthermore, the trees alongside the highway are much younger than those in the park, and therefore easier to replace.
Rotem Yadlin, who heads the Gezer Regional Council, which mainly comprises kibbutzim, moshavim, and other small communities, has been battling to change the location for two and half years.
Just over a month ago, after the IEC had moved in with equipment, without informing the council, she appealed to the Central District Court in Lod but lost. The court ruled that the plan fulfilled all of the “bureaucratic” requirements and that construction could continue.
Part of a wheat field has already been cleared for a new pylon to carry a high voltage electricity cable. (Courtesy, Gezer Regional Council)
Sections of agricultural land to the north and south of the forest have already been cleared for the placing of pylons, although the pylons have not been set up yet.
“The national infrastructure committee hasn’t decided yet exactly where the cable will go, but the IEC is creating facts on the ground,” Yadlin told The Times of Israel, asking rhetorically when the courts would intervene on the side of the environment.
Neither the National Infrastructure Planning Committee (known by its Hebrew acronym, Vattal), the IEC nor the Energy Ministry had consulted with the council at any stage, she said.
Rotem Yadlin, head of the Gezer Regional Council. (Ronen Horesh)
“Every request that I’ve made — be it to bury the cables, put them alongside Route 6, or even make the pylons less ugly — has been rejected,” she said.
“When the 1991 National Outline Plan was approved, five million people were living in the country. Ten families lived in the community of Mishmar David. Now there are 350. The community sits just 150 meters (just under 500 feet) from the existing power line. It will be just 120 meters (400 feet) away from the new one.”
Yadlin quoted from the introduction to the new National Outline Plan for Electricity Infrastructure (NOP 41), due to be approved by the government, which calls for different kinds of infrastructure to be combined in one place wherever possible to avoid harm to open areas.
The introduction notes the importance of “the preservation and nurturing of landscapes, the values of culture and heritage, agriculture, environment and appearance, a continuum of open space, biodiversity and the natural ecosystems and their essential services to humankind,” as well as public access to nature for leisure, education and tourism.
“There are the words and there’s the reality,” Yadlin said. “I would expect innovative thinking from the Startup Nation. But here, they’re working according to a plan that was approved 35 years ago. The planning is old-fashioned and doesn’t consider open space. They just go for the easiest option without any understanding of the esthetics.”
It is understood that the project will probably require the felling of some 300 to 400 trees, over 12 dunams (three acres).
The Hulda park is a popular place for couples to be photographed before their weddings. (Gilad Mastai)
Gilad Mastai, KKL’s Shfela region plain and coast director, said he had had not only submitted his opposition to the plan but would inform the Agriculture Ministry’s top forestry official that he would be opposing the uprooting of trees.
“Just look at this whole area of vineyards, orchards, and agricultural fields. It’s covered in pylons and posts for lighting, telephones, cellular networks, electricity. Has anyone asked why we need so many posts?”
He added that a second high-voltage cable would interfere with a large KKL project to upgrade the forest.
“It’s terrible to destroy a small park like this. These cables create noise and radiation and people won’t want to come anymore,” Mastai said.
The Energy Ministry said that placing the new line next to the existing one met the requirements of National Outline Plan 41 by using an existing area zoned for electrical infrastructure, rather than developing a new one.
“The Ministry of Energy conducted several tours along the route in collaboration with interested parties,” a spokeswoman said. “Moving the line to another location would likely hurt other stakeholders.”
A statement from the central region district planning and building committee said that it was still “considering the best option for laying the last section of the route.”
An IEC spokeswoman said, “Before the implementation of the plans in the field, all works were coordinated with the landowners and the council, including a letter to the head of the council in July 2021.”
She added that “all the options had been examined from an environmental point of view.”
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