January 2006

The Rishon LeZion Magistrates Court has approved an agreement between IUED and the City of Rishon LeZion obliging the City to rehabilitate a 60-acre site where it formerly operated an illegal landfill.

Rishon's local authority buried over a period of 30 years over a million tons of domestic waste at the unlicensed site, which lacked basic sanitary and environmental safeguards. Experts believe the landfill has contaminated local groundwater. 

The site was closed by court order three years ago, as the result of a lawsuit brought by IUED against the Rishon LeZion local authority.

In the court-mandated agreement, the northern section of the site will be rehabilitated over the next four years; the southern section will be remdiated within five years. The City of Rishon LeZion must submit a remediation progress report to IUED on a quarterly basis.

Judge Shaul Manheim of the Rishon LeZion Magistrates Court commented in his ruling that the IUED-Rishon agreement is an important achievement which should serve as a model for advancing similar actions with other local authorities.