The Europe Asia Pipeline Company, which manages a network of crude oil pipelines between Ashkelon on the southern Mediterranean coast and Eilat on the Red Sea, is waging a new legal and environmental battle — this time to go into the fiber optics business.

The state company wants to lay six polyethylene fiber-optic sleeves alongside its oil pipes — two containing fibers to gather real-time information about threats to the pipeline infrastructure, and an additional four to be rented to security organizations or commercially to other companies.

It says it wants to use its terrestrial infrastructure in the Arava and Negev deserts to create an international communications bridge between Europe, Asia, and the Arab world, thereby strengthening Israel’s status as a regional communications center.

Opposing the project are the Environmental Protection Ministry, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, two regional authorities, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, and Keshet, an NGO focused on Mitzpe Ramon and the Negev Highlands in southern Israel.

They contend that the EAPC’s mandate is strictly limited to the “transport and storage of oil” and that digging new infrastructure for telecommunications — even for internal monitoring — exceeds that mandate.

Sources speculated that the real reason the EAPC wants to move into communications is to ensure its continued existence once oil goes out of fashion.

They also said no information has been provided on the underground communication infrastructure, control-and-command buildings, and technical facilities required to operate the fiber-optic lines.

In an appeal to the Deputy Attorney General (Civil) at the Justice Ministry last month, lawyers for the Nature and Parks Authority pointed out that........

© The Times of Israel