A group of 30 Majlis deputies has prepared a plan to revive Lake Urumiyeh after widespread protests that led to the arrests of many activists and protestors.
“According to this plan, the administration is charged with finding the best solutions, up to three years from when the bill is approved, to save and revive Lake Urumiyeh and return it to its previous condition,” Nader Ghazipur, one of the bill’s sponsors, told Khaneh Mellat website.
The bill is to be formally introduced in the Majlis next Sunday, said Ghazipur, who represents Urumiyeh in the Majlis.
But a co-sponsor of the bill gave a different interpretation of the purpose of the bill; Ali-Reza Mahjub said the proposal aims to “keep the situation in Lake Urumiyeh from becoming more critical,” far different from restoring the lake to its original condition.
Mahjub said the plan allows the government to transfer water to Lake Urumiyeh from “the many water resources available in the country.”
But Sadiq Barati, an environmental official in the Energy Ministry, said there is simply not enough water in the Urumiyeh watershed region to replenish the lake and restore its former glory.
“If all the water behind dams [on rivers feeding into the lake] is released into Lake Urumiyeh without being used for drinking or agriculture, there would still not be enough water flow into the lake to take it back to1376 [1997-98] and its days of splendor!”
First Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi earlier said the government would divert water from the Aras River—beyond the Urumiyeh watershed—into the lake. Critics have said that would be extremely expensive, as water would have to be pumped over mountains to reach the lake.
Furthermore, that has raised eyebrows in Azerbaijan. The Aras forms the border between the two countries and Azerbaijani newspapers say Iran failed to discuss the diversion idea with Azerbaijan before Rahimi announced the plan.
That reinforced the view of some that the Rahimi plan is just a publicity stunt meant to quiet protesters. Rahimi said the government would spend more than $900 million on the diversion scheme, but the Majlis has never considered such funding.
Urumiyeh, Iran’s largest lake, has shrunk by more than 60 percent of its original size in the past decade.
At its original size, the lake was slightly larger than Utah’s Great Salt Lake and was home to migratory birds like flamingos, pelicans, spoonbills, ibises, storks, avocets, stilts and gulls. It is considered the world’s third largest salt-water lake.
Environmental activists have been protesting in recent months against the government’s inaction to save the lake. The government arrested 70 protestors during a demonstration in March. Protests erupted across several northwestern cities again in August, leading authorities to arrest several dozen more. The crackdown prompted Human Rights Watch to call out the Iranian government for its repression.
“The latest round of arrests shows how intolerant Iranian authorities are toward any form of public criticism,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch.
“Authorities should free Azerbaijan residents who appear to have been arrested solely for gathering peacefully.”
The latest round of arrests began August 24 when authorities detained 30 people gathered for iftar in the Tabriz home of Sadeq Avazpur. Among those arrested were his two sons, who are well known locally for their activism and previous arrests.
Police also clashed with protestors in other areas of the province, including the Yekanin Bazaar, Aghdash and Darvazeh-Shapur areas of Urumiyeh city, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Thousands of protestors who had gathered in Urumiyeh City were chanting slogans like, “Lake Urumiyeh gives life, Majlis orders its death,” and, “Let us cry so that with our tears we replenish Lake Urumiyeh.”
A witness present at the protest later told Human Rights Watch the police beat protestors with batons and fired teargas. He and others said the protests were largely peaceful, but several demonstrators fought back when the police used teargas and fired rubber bullets to break up the crowd.
There have been reports of serious injury and even death, but Human Rights Watch has been unable to ascertain the validity of these reports.
For years the authorities and pro-government newspapers have rejected any administrative responsibility for the lake’s drying, citing instead global warming as the main factor. Official reports blame the drying mainly on a decade-long drought, and only peripherally on consumption of water of the feeding rivers for farming.
But many others disagree with this assessment.
The first alarm over the lake’s shrinking came in the 1990s amid a nagging drought. Nonetheless, the government pressed on with the construction of dozens of dams and a roadway over the lake between Tabriz and Urumiyeh, for which no environmental feasibility study was conducted.
Environmentalists believe the project worsened the lake’s health by acting as a barrier to water circulation.
Nasser Agh, who teaches at Tabriz Sahand University, suggested miscalculations led to a late reaction to save the lake.
“Experts believed it would be a 10-year drought cycle, at first,” he said. But the drought still persists, with devastating effects.
In the early 2000s, academic research concluded that the lake could face the same destiny as the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which has been steadily shrinking since rivers that feed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects in the 1960s. It is now less than one-tenth its original size.
Hassan Abbas-nejad, an official of the Environmental Protection Organization in West Azerbaijan, reported several months ago that the deepest part of the lake is now only two meters (six 1/2 feet), and warned against increased salinity and calamitous problems for the region’s ecology and climate.
The reduction of the oxygen level from shrinkage threatens the survival of the only living creature in the lake, the artemia or brine shrimp, which serves as a food source for flamingos and other migratory birds.
Meanwhile, the governor of West Azerbaijan province asked Iranians to remain alert to plots by the enemies of the revolution. Lake Urumiyeh’s fame has spread beyond Iran’s borders, he said, commenting that although Iranians are worried about its condition, similar expressions from foreign media are a thinly veiled attempt to incite the people against the government.
The governor is not alone in his complaints against foreign provocation. Several publications have denounced what they call a Voice of America report saying the Iranian government wants to dry out the lake so it can get to uranium deposits on the lakebed.
Tensions over the lake also played out on the soccer field when the Azerbaijan-based Teraktor-sazi downed Tehran’s Esteqlal September 9, putting Teraktor-sazi on top of the national standings and prompting nationalist chants and demands for the more water for Lake Urumiyeh.
Urumiyeh, however, is hardly Iran’s only pressing environmental issue.
Esfahan’s Zayandeh River is frequently dry, and the iconic Si-o Seh Pol bridge is cracked. There is a call in Esfahan for people to wear black armbands Friday to draw attention to the plight of the city’s two landmarks.