Brussels, 06/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - A study released on Monday in Brussels brings into question a loan of EUR 30 million granted by the EIB to co-finance a water extraction scheme in the West Bank. According to one of the study's co-authors, Gert de Bruijne, from the Palestinian Hydrology Group, the scheme will contribute to the irreversible exhaustion of the aquifer located exclusively under the territory of the Palestinian Authority. Three NGOs, "Friends of the Earth", "EEC Bankwatch Network" and "Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale" state that, even though the EIB claims that this investment will provide drinking water to over 350,000 Palestinians from the southern part of the Occupied Territories, the long term consequences have never been taken into account. Gert de Bruijne considers the EIB and the Palestinian Authority know how scarce resources are at this place but are not doing enough to monitor the aquifer's capacity and the consequences of increased water exploitation. One EIB official denied such statements, telling EUROPE that "the project protects the environment and the population by the sustainable provision of drinking water below the limits of the aquifer ". He specified that part of the aid will go to excavating a single well that may extract 3 million cubic metres and the other goes to a programme for water filtering and treatment. He added that the project had been forwarded for consultation to the relevant international institutions and to the NGOs themselves.