Pollution of quaternary cover on aquafers of eocene chalk in Ramat Hovav Industrial Area in Israel

Ramat Hovav in the Northern Negev of Israel was selected as a site for an industrial park because it had been believed to have a potential capacity to absorb in the loess layer large amounts of hazardous chemical waste liquid and solid materials. The lithology of this site is composed of calcareous loess, sand dunes and underlying limestones. Its soils are loessial serozems, brown lithosols, sandy regosols and arid brown soils. The geomorphology includes specific forms of the Negev desert, such as differentiated relief, slightly dipping level structures, 'V' shaped canyons, parabolic and sief sand dunes. The hypothetical time span required to totally fill the pore space in the loess, in the total area draining the site selected for study, is more than 400 yr. The problem lies in the ability of the rock formations to act as conduit and storage for the toxic waste in such a way that will protect the inhabitants from the toxic dangers. Microstructural data are lacking on the 130 m between the Eocene saline water chalk aquifer that lies immediately below the loess, and the Cenomanian meteoric water limestone and dolomite aquifer below. Outcrops of the Eocene chalk, however, do show fractures which, if present also in the buried Eocene rocks, may serve as passages for quick leakage of the waste liquids into the underlying rocks.