How and why do certain changes in nature come to be defined as environmental problems? Social scientists argue that environmental problems are socially constructed in the sense that societal groups and conditions help define, or frame, certain changes in the natural environment as problematic and worthy of attention and action. Researchers point to the role of the media, environmental organizations, and policy-makers, in shaping public perceptions about ‘the environment’ and about the salience of some environmental issues over others. Drawing on this constructionist approach, the paper examines the problem of the Dead Sea, the unique salt lake in the Middle East, where the water level has been declining for decades yet it is only in recent years that it has been loudly touted as an urgent environmental problem. With 30 years of news articles, and documents from government agencies and environmental NGOs, the project tracks the changing conceptions of the Dead Sea water level, paying close attention to when the receding water line was defined as an environmental problem, who pushed the idea, how they did it, and to what effect. The paper argues, ironically, that powerful state and economic interests in a particular solution helped to construct the decline of the Dead Sea as a serious environmental problem.