Scientists warn that flooding cave will ruin unique 5-million-year-old ecosystem
An underground cave cut off from the world for five million years and inhabited by strange and unique creatures that have adapted to sulfurous waters and complete darkness is being threatened by a plan to use the quarry in which it is located as a receptacle for seasonal floodwaters from the Ayalon River basin in central Israel.
The National Infrastructure Committee and the Water Authority are looking for a place to which surface runoff water can be directed in the winter. This is in connection with plans for an additional rail line in the area that would require narrowing a section of the Ayalon River.
Scientists from the fields of biodiversity, evolution, the beginnings of life, and hydrology are fiercely opposed to using the quarry, and say that planning committee members have not been told about the ecological implications of flooding it.
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