Lake Urmia shoaling threatens lives of over half million people
By Sara Rajabova
The critical situation of Lake Urmia was widely debated in Iran in order to find the rational solution to the problem.
Lake Urmia in northwest Iran is experiencing its worst drought condition for many years, where over 70 percent of its water has dried up. The level of the water has been declining since 1995.
Debates were organized on the first channel of Iranian state television on the situation at Lake Urmia, Tabnak news website reported on September 24.
These debates were attended by the head of Iran's West Azerbaijan province Vahid Jalalzade, Deputy Director of Environmental Protection Organization for Natural Environment and Biodiversity Ahmed Ali Keykha, representatives of the Iranian parliament Mansour Hagigatpur and Nadir Gazipur, the head of the Water and Water Resources Department of Iran's Ministry of Eergy, Alireza Daimi and member of the Center for Scientific Research Organizations on Protection of Forests of Iran, Mohammad Darwish, as well as students from various regions of Iran.
During the televised debates, the head of the West Azerbaijan province, Jalalzade said that these days Lake Urmia is in a very critical situation.
"For 30 years, Lake Urmia has been deprived of attention," he said. "As a result of construction of dams and climate change, some 70 percent of the lake has dried up and all forces should be mobilized for rescuing the lake."
Representative of the Iranian parliament Hagigatpur noted that Lake Urmia is missing 14 million cubic meters of water.
As the main reasons for this situation, Hagigatpur showed the increase of sowing areas from 110,000 hectares to 450,000 hectares, the construction of dams, the occurrence of more than 30,000 water wells around as the main reasons of this situation.
He also added that overflowing water from the Araz River into Lake Urmia is an unprofessional solution of the problem.
Hagigatpur warned that the drying up of Lake Urmia threatens the lives of over half million people, that use the lake's waters.
Another representative of the Iranian parliament Nadir Gazipur stressed that those responsible for this situation over Lake Urmia are the ministries of energy and environment, and noted that the lake is suffering as a result of licenses issued by these ministries for the construction of dams and the agricultural works.
Recently, Iran's Energy Minister, Hamid Chitchian has informed that Iranian President Hassan Rohani has signed special instruction to suspend work on the construction of the dam around Lake Urmia.
Chitchian added that they will suspend survey into the construction of the dam around Lake Urmia intended to restore its water resources and explore the possibility for the water transfer into the lake from other water basins, including the Araz River and the Caspian Sea.
Gazipur said that as a result of drying up of Lake Urmia, large sown areas will dry up, and as a result plants and manufacturing enterprises will be shut down.
In this case three million Azerbaijanis will be forced to leave the region.
President Rouhani has established a working group to tackle the issue of saving Lake Urmia.
Chitchian said this group looked through all researches on Lake Urmia, which were carried out before and prepared several projects on the basis of these studies.
The task group was commissioned to use the background of the already conducted studies and technical research works in the field and to present their proposals for saving Lake Urmia to the government within a two-month period.
The area of Lake Urmia is the third largest salt water lake on earth, which has 6,000 square kilometers surface. During the migrations of birds the lake becomes their temporary home. The lake's drying up has an impact on the flora and fauna of the region. Experts on environmental issues say that the measures taken by the Iranian government are not enough to save the lake.
The project on directing 600 million cubic meters of water from Araz River into Lake Urmia was launched during a visit by former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and government officials to Tabriz in 2010. Some $1.2 billion is to be allocated to implement the project.
The Iranian government allocated $900 million to prevent Lake Urmia's drying up in September 2011.
Also, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) has allocated $135 million to Iran to resolve environmental problems with shoaling of the lake.