Save Adullam from Oil Shale Extraction

(http://atzuma.co.il/saveadullam לעצומה בעברית)

More information: SaveAdullam.org

Stop the oil shale extraction in Adullam now!

Bicyclists and hikers love to travel through the scenic parkland, while Jews and Christians worldwide are inspired by the story of David's battle against Goliath and his sojourn in the Cave of Adullam.

A pilot extraction project for is set to begin on the Biblical David and Goliath battlefield site in the Valley of Elah. This pilot is meant assess economic feasibility--estimating environmental damage is out-of-scope.

This follows an exploratory drilling in Adullam Park in December 2009, started by an international oil company with no prior notice to residents. In July 2010, the company began an exploratory drilling near historic Lachish.

The pilot and commercial extraction will implement a new system for heating the underground shale to 650 degrees Fahrenheit, forcing the oil out of the shale rock and into pipes for further processing.

If the extraction proceeds as planned, the underground heat and oil extraction risk destruction of the landscape, the antiquities, the wildlife, the air, and the ground-water.

This area was the heart of Judea in the first centuries CE. Beautiful and valuable two-millennia-old antiquities fill the park, most buried safely underground. If these hidden treasures crumble under years of slow heat, they will be lost forever.

The expensive extraction process has never been profitable. The new technique may cross the profitability threshold, but even if so, local farmers who work the land will be entitled to no royalties and local tourism operators will suffer.

The scenic and historic center of a small country is no place to dig for oil shale. Stop the oil shale extraction in our beloved Adullam.