Even when there’s less-than-perfect visibility, the view from the eastern slope of Mount Gilboa is breathtaking. From the foot of the mountain to the Jordan River stretches a rural landscape of kibbutzim, villages, agricultural plots, and bodies of water.

Not for nothing is the area’s regional council called Emek HaMaayanot, Hebrew for the Valley of Springs.

The area’s original name was the Beit She’an Valley, but in 2008, the council decided it would be better to be associated with streams of water than with a drab peripheral city. Ironically, the city of Beit She’an is now a full partner in the unusual project currently being advanced in the valley, and in the profits the initiative is expected to generate.

The council’s territory is rich in springs and streams. The best known – such as Nahal HaKibbutzim and Ein Shokek – are concentrated in a popular local park. But in fact, most of the water that’s visible from the mountain lookout belongs to fishponds.

Eighty-five percent of Israel’s fishpond industry is located in this small regional council, which counts about 17,000 residents living in 25 communities. Israeli-raised fish once constituted an empire, but times have changed.

Many of the area’s fishponds have dried up, but nature abhors a vacuum: instead of carp and tilapia, the floors of the ponds will soon be carpeted by solar panels.

One of the officials spearheading the project is Itamar Matiash, who helms the regional council. The 49-year-old, elected to the position two years ago, lives in the religious kibbutz of Tirat Zvi, though he has a mixed religious-secular household and does not himself wear a kippah.

Matiash came to the world of local government after many years in education and work with at-risk populations. A battalion commander in the military reserves, he is far removed from the wheeler-dealer profile that characterizes some other Israeli elected officials.

He speaks passionately about the council he runs and his dreams for it. One of his biggest dreams, called “Tapuz” —  a Hebrew acronym for “Regional Photovoltaic Corporation” – is beginning to come true.

The high evaporation rate and the cost of water severely hurt the economic viability of fishponds, and so thousands of acres of ponds were shut down.

The high evaporation rate and the cost of water severely hurt the economic viability of fishponds, and so thousands of acres of ponds were shut down.

“The amendment to the Water Law hit the valley hard,” said Matiash, referring to a legislative measure passed nine years ago that ended up indirectly spurring the solar project.

“They created a uniform water tariff across the country,” he explained. “But this is the hottest place in Israel, with the possible exception of Gilgal,” a small community located deep in the scorching Jordan Valley, considered the hottest spot in Israel.

“Because of the heat and evaporation, growing an acre of bananas here costs four times as much as it does in Emek Hefer” on the Mediterranean coast, he said. “The high evaporation rate and the cost of water severely hurt the economic viability of fishponds, so thousands of acres of ponds were shut down.”

With the fish gone, the question of what to do with all those ponds........

© The Times of Israel