Environmental Commitment

Israel Natural Gas Lines treats environmental commitment as a highest priority and promotes sustainable development. In all of its activities related to natural gas transmission in Israel, the company is sensitive to environmental concerns and follows the requisite guidelines and regulations.

In accordance with this approach, all of the company’s activities integrate environmental considerations, most of which can be discerned in the following areas of operation:

  • Detailed national master plans
  • Engineering plans and building permits
  • Operational organization
  • Laying of pipelines
  • Landscape restoration

From the planning stage, through construction and maintenance, the work of Israel Natural Gas Lines includes efforts to avoid environmental risks and damage. Both in the overall comprehensive planning and in the specifically tailored plans for each site, the company attends to the environmental needs, restoration and development of the original landscape. To ensure that these objectives are met, the company works in cooperation with an environmental team that closely follows the planning stages. This team includes urban planners, geographers, agronomists, architects and landscape architects.

Israel Natural Gas Lines acts to preserve the environment prior to, during and following each project.

The following list describes some of the activities the company undertakes prior to a project’s operational stage:

  • Preparing a detailed orthophoto map of the landscape, on varying scales ranging from 1:100 to 1:1,000. The map is based on the original landscape not on the landscape as found immediately before project initiation.
  • Obtaining preliminary landscape measurements.
  • Visiting the site for preliminary planning and coordination with environmental authorities and organizations.
  • Surveying the animals and geophytes of the area.
  • Identifying access routes and site operation centers while taking into account the preservation of flora and fauna.
  • Preliminary coordination with all of the relevant organizations and authorities: the Jewish National Fund, Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Trans-Israel Highway (Route 6) Authority, Public Works Authority, licensing authority, Israel Antiquities Authority, relevant authorities from the Ministry of National Infrastructures.
  • Preliminary consultation with regional farmers, to coordinate our projects with their planting cycles.

The following list describes some of the activities the company undertakes during a project’s operational stage:

  • Identifying plants for uprooting and relocation.
  •  Use of geotechnical landscape fabrics.
  • Use of architectural and local elements to lessen visibility.
  • Removal and preservation of the top soil on the work strip.
  • Creative solutions for laying pipelines in environmentally sensitive areas, including restricting the total work strip area.
  • Replacing engineering structures with environmentally friendly solutions when feasible.
  • Gathering arable soils and geophytes.
  • Physically confining (fencing) the work-strip areas to avoid unintended damage by equipment.
  • Supervising the project to ensure compliance with building permits.
  • Choosing advanced equipment such as welding tents to minimize environmental disruption.
  • Taking care when working on dirt tracks to lessen potential environmental damage (removing chains from equipment, repeated wetting of the dirt with non-salinated water to prevent dust damage, etc.)
  • Compliance with noise, quality and safety regulations.
  • Prohibiting the use of plants as burning material.
  • Removal of dirt remnants to permitted sites prepared for such purposes, according to the guidelines of the Ministry of the Environment and Israel Land Administration.
  • Providing highly specific guidelines in sensitive places, as in a riverbed crossing.
  • Ensuring close and constant supervision of the national commission and finding precise solutions to problems that arise.

The actions and regulations practiced by Israel Natural Gas Lines, which are tailored to the characteristics and the environmental needs of each locale, demonstrate our commitment to maintaining Israel’s natural treasures and its precious landscapes, thus applying our policy of sustainable development.

Accessibility