The dam was completed in the early 1930s as part of
Pinhas Rutenberg's
Naharayim hydroelectric power plant project. The power plant's activity was discontinued as a result of the
1948 Arab-Israeli war. However, for a few times it was opened more generously, such as in 1995 and then again only in May 2013, when the water level in the lake had reached dangerously high levels close to the "
upper red line" after heavy spring flooding. The river is dammed again some three kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee and Degania Dam by an
embankment called "
Alumot Dam", where the fresh water section ends as
treated wastewater and
brackish water are added to the mix. There are government-sponsored projects under way since 2013 to change the entire water economy of the Lower Jordan, including an increase in the quantity of fresh water passing through Degania Dam from the lake into the river. ==References==