January 24-2014
The Majlis Budget Committee last week approved 500 billion rials ($17 million) to address the drying out of Lake Urumiyeh, an amount that is barely 1 percent of what the Ahmadi-nejad Administration said is needed.
Deputy Moayyed Hossaini-Sadr told the Mehr news agency the small sum was approved as the committee works on the budget for the year to begin at Now Ruz.
He said 32 different work plans were submitted to the Majlis for addressing the lake, which was reported recently to have lost 70 percent of its normal water content and has now become almost dead as a result of the concentration of salt.
Hossaini-Sadr, who is one of the environmentalists in the Majlis, said the sum was nowhere near enough to solve the lake’s problems.
In one of its last acts on July 27, seven days before its term expired, the Ahmadi-nejad government formally inaugurated a huge project to revive Lake Urumiyeh by diverting water from the Aras River.
As president-elect, Hassan Rohani endorsed the goal of reviving the lake. But it canceled the Ahmadi-nejad plan after taking office and said it was studying a number of alternatives.
The state-owned Iran Daily said the Ahmadi-nejad project would cost 35 trillion rials or about $1.2 billion, a stupendous sum for a government that is now strapped financially and facing deficits as far as the eye can see.
The Ahmadi-nejad Administration only announced a commitment of 960 billion rials ($32 million) or less than 3 percent of the required total. And the Majlis has now approved only half of that.
The Ahmadi-nejad plan would divert water from the Aras River, which forms the border with Azerbaijan, pump it over the mountains and use it to build up Lake Urumiyeh while also providing drinking water to 22 cities and 286 villages and irrigation water for an area that is now rapidly drying up.
An Ahmadi-nejad Administration official told the Fars news agency that Iran has reached an agreement with Azerbaijan allowing for the diversion of the required volume of river water. Azerbaijan has said nothing.
Last week, Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian said the tripling of agricultural lands around Lake Urumiyeh and the consequent need for vast quantities of irrigation water was the chief reason the lake is drying up.
“We need 10 to 15 years to be able to return Lake Urumiyeh to its previous situation and any slogan and propagandistic or political promise which is devoid of reality is treason against the lake and the people,” Chitchian told a meeting of Majlis deputies from East Azerbaijan province.
Chitchian said his ministry will use all its efforts to save the lake. However, he warned that if the water for agriculture is not better managed, the lake “will never be revived.”