July 19, 2019
A water official says the government is on the verge of giving final approval to a controversial plan first proposed back in the 1960s to pipe desalinated Caspian Sea water over the mountains to the parched towns of Semnan province.
The government is now confident that transferring water from the Caspian to Semnan is the best alternative to fight drought in the central plateau, Behruz Moradi, the managing director of the Iran Water and Power Resources Development Company, said July 10.
“Other proposals have been considered, yet there is no better choice than siphoning seawater and transferring it to Semnan for drinking and industrial purposes after desalination,” the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) quoted Moradi as saying.
“To help fight large-scale deforestation, the water will be transferred through the 160-km Nekka-Rey oil pipeline,” he said. He didn’t say how oil would then be moved from Nekka, a Caspian seaport, to the refinery near Rey. Iran has used the pipeline to import oil from Caspian coastal states. But in recent years, there has been little business for the pipeline since Iran’s neighbors don’t like Iran’s pricing policy. That suggested the regime may now be willing to abandon its goal of buying oil from the Caspian coastal states, which was meant to save on the cost of moving oil from the far south to the north.
The proposed plan, which Moradi said was almost finalized, involves siphoning 200 million cubic meters of seawater per year from the Caspian.
The venture, which he said is projected to cost $650 million, will be fully funded by the private sector, he insisted, and would be completed within four years. He didn’t say if any private investors had been lined up yet. The regime has a habit of talking up projects to be funded by private interests, but then not being able to find any such private investors.
Other strategies, such as rainwater harvesting, judicious water use (especially in the agricultural sector), promoting advanced irrigation techniques, recycling wastewater, separating potable water from wastewater and implementing watershed plans have been implemented in the region, Moradi said. However, residents are still suffering from a water shortage.
The transfer of desalinated water from the Caspian Sea to the country’s central plateau was first proposed in the 1960s. It never got beyond the discussion stage until recently, which many think is a result of the fact that President Rohani was born in Semnan.
Naghmeh Mobarqaei, a specialist in environmental studies at Shahid Beheshti University, has criticized the project for increasing “Caspian salinity and seriously harming marine ecosystems.” Others have said the costs are too high and will make the water uneconomical. However, the idea of using an existing pipeline would substantially reduce capital costs.
Still, the water would have to be pumped upward more than a mile to an altitude of 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) to get it over the Alborz Mountains.