Biblical Waters: Can the Jordan River Be Saved?
With the swelling ranks of Syrian refugees in Jordan, an overstressed river is at risk of going dry.
If Jesus were to plunge into the Jordan River today, he might well injure himself.
"Is that it? Seriously, that's the Jordan? I could jump it," declared one mightily unimpressed American teenager, as we crossed the river from the Kingdom of Jordan to the Palestinian West Bank one blindingly bright afternoon back in October.
There's no real mystery as to how the river famous as the reputed site of Jesus' baptism has sunk so low.
"Everybody's been taking water from the Upper Jordan because everybody needs it," said Clive Lipchin, director of the Center for Transboundary Water Management at Israel's Arava Institute, and one of a number of water experts alarmed by the decline of a river that was never particularly substantial
