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In the wake of pressure by Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan and following an agreement between the Ministries of Environmental Protection, Defense, Finance and Infrastructure, the Israel cabinet has approved a plan to connect army camps to the sewage infrastructure. The plan is to go into effect immediately, with completion scheduled for the end of 2015. The decision is meant to implement the recommendations of an interministerial professional team on connecting Israel Defense Forces (IDF) camps to the country's sewage infrastructure. For more than a year, the committee surveyed IDF camps throughout Israel and formulated a multiannual program for improving inadequate sewage systems. Recommendations were made according to a priority list based on sanitary, environmental and hydrological considerations. According to the government decision, funds will be allocated by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Environmental Protection over a five and a half year period. Where connection to existing sewage systems is impossible, other solutions will be sought, based on efficient technologies and accepted standards, in coordination with the Administration for the Development of Sewage Infrastructures . Environmental Protection Minister Erdan has called the decision "a historic decision which attests to the fact that the state is beginning to understand its responsibility for the environmental hazards it causes." For years, due to the fact that some 150 IDF camps were not connected to the sewage infrastructure, sewage from these camps was discharged to open space, causing the contamination of water sources. According to Minister Erdan, the state is obligated to comply with the same environmental thresholdss which it requires from the public. A situation cannot be allowed whereby mayors and CEOs are investigated and indicted for environmental pollution while the state itself does not do its utmost to prevent the severe pollution caused by army bases.
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