Israeli Tech For California Water Crisis

An inevitable water crisis is staring humanity in the face. And the nations across the globe are gearing up to manage the crisis. On the day of World Water Day, 22nd March 2016, the White House announced more than 30 projects to promote a national dialogue on the state of Nation’s water resources and infrastructure, “with support, investments, and resources provided for technologies that can improve water management, promote conservation, and advance water sustainability on all fronts.

Most of these projects were born in the USA - except one approved for Los Angeles, which will establish a cleantech incubator where Israeli firms will develop solutions for California’s ongoing water crisis. The LA project was proposed in December by the Israel-California Green-Tech Partnership and is built in California and Israel’s March 2014 Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate in developing water and green technology solutions.

White House in a statement said, “Today, the partnership is announcing a new joint venture with the city of Los Angeles’ Cleantech Incubator (LACI) that will culminate in the introduction of 10 Israeli companies in water, energy, and agricultural technologies to the California market. These companies will help accelerate the shift to a greener economy, with a particular focus on benefiting drought-stricken populations across the state, including the nearly 123,000 farmers in California.”

With Israel as the only foreign country named as a source for water tech in the White House announcement (only one other foreign firm, Japan’s Toray, is involved in the program), Mark Donig, a member of the Israel-California Green-Tech Partnership which was established in October 2015 said, “As a developer of relatively inexpensive water technologies, Israel is a place the US must look to in order to ensure that farmers, industry, and citizens have access to clean, potable water. The group seeks to bring innovative water tech to parched California, where, perhaps surprisingly, about 10% of the water used is recycled, as opposed to Israel, where 86% of the water gets a second life.”

Aaron Tartakovsky, co-founder, and CEO of California-based Epic CleanTech elaborating about the venture said, "The White House program is aimed at encouraging public-private collaboration to develop water solutions, and that is what the partnership is all about. Israel has plenty of experience in developing solutions for water recycling and restoration, water-saving drip irrigation technology, water conservation, and desalination. An Israeli company, IDE, is already helping to build one of the world’s biggest desalination plant in San Diego. California needs more of this tech, and the new program will bring to California some of the innovative Israeli start-ups that are developing solutions that we can implement here."

“It will be like a tech boot camp for them. We will help them create ties with mentors, investors, and potential customers, as well as help them navigate the very jumbled California water business, where there are some 1,200 water districts and authorities – unlike the single Water Authority they are used to working in Israel.”

Israeli tech is very important for California and the entire country as water crisis is going to take years and billions of dollars to fix, and it’s a problem that is likely to repeat itself in many other places.