The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection has identified the reduction of toxic air as a "top priority" for 2008:

The ministry's agenda for 2008 focused on reducing pollution, especially air pollution, as well as assessing Israel's contribution to global warming. According to the ministry, air quality in Israel is lower than the average for Western countries. To improve it, the ministry plans to adopt and enforce the European IPPC standard as well as adjust legislation to dovetail with government environmental policy. The Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control requires highly polluting industries to acquire a permit of environmental approval to operate. Finally, the ministry intends to set up filtering systems on electricity plants.

In a related story, the Post reports the Ministry is already making good on its commitment, announcing that 11 factories are under investigation for contributions to toxic air around Haifa Port:

The ministry tested the air quality around the port for 24 hours in June and then again in September. They found that the levels of benzene, chloroform, methylene chloride, formaldehyde, and trichloroethylene were all too high. The above are all either carcinogenic or suspected of being carcinogenic. The 11 factories either use, store or sell the chemicals in question.

Shuli Nezer, head of the air pollution branch at the ministry, told the committee that more tests would be conducted in February to locate the sources of the pollution, which thus far remain unknown.

Committee head MK Ophir Paz-Pines (Labor) demanded that the factories suspected of releasing the chemicals be shut down until the leaks could be identified.

"We must close down suspected factories until it can be proven that they are not the polluters. It cannot be that in Israel in 2008 there is an occupation [the] price [of which] is human lives," he declared.

Read the full stories here and here.