– Iran’s largest lake that has shrunk more than 60 percent in recent years – amid reports that some protests turned violent as a result of the crackdown by the government.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that anti-riot police fired teargas Saturday at peaceful protestors in Tabriz, the capital of East Azerbaijan province, causing injuries to several.
Police clashed with protestors in other areas of the province, including the Yekanin Bazaar, Aghdash and Darvazeh-Shapur areas of Urumiyeh city, according to HRANA. The clashes coincided with an uncharacteristic slowing of Internet service in the area.
It is unclear how many were injured in the clashes, but security forces reportedly raided hospitals to arrest injured protestors.
On its surface, the regime crackdown on an environmental protest would seem an odd over-reaction. There have been environmental protests elsewhere in the country without a stiff police response. But the regime may see more than environmental issues involved as there is an undercurrent of Azeri ethnic resentment in the region.
Thirty people were arrested by the police, reported the Association for the Defense of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran. Those arrested included: Yashar Piri, a student at Payam-e Nur University; Ali-Reza Khalil-zadeh, a former army lieutenant; and Mehdi Golabi, a political activist who was reportedly transferred to Ardabil’s intelligence department.
Radio Zamaneh quoted the protestors’ families as complaining that the authorities aren’t saying where they are holding those arrested.
The protestors were chanting slogans against environmental degradation, the impact of the lake’s shrinkage on the local economy and the government’s inaction to save the lake after a series of adverse actions that have contributed to the lake’s shrinkage.
Radio Zamaneh cited unspecified sources as saying 35 dams have been built on rivers feeding Lake Urumiyeh, while another 10 are under construction, thus draining away much of the water that feeds the lake.
At its original size, Lake Urumiyeh 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—or was—considered the world’s third largest salt-water lake.
The protest movement has been bubbling for many months. Seventy people were reportedly arrested in March in Urumiyeh and Tabriz during protests over government inaction to save the lake.
Last week’s protests were sparked by the Majlis rejection of a bill earlier this month to raise water levels in Lake Urumiyeh by transferring water from the rivers Aras and Silueh to the lake. Critics of the bill said the expense of the proposed diversion would be immense.
A group of 22 deputies have banded together and warned of adverse economic and environmental impact from the lake’s shrinkage, urging the Majlis Presiding Board to take “expert and immediate action” to prevent such an outcome.
“Considering the current trend of the environmental crisis in Lake Urumiyeh, it will be completely dried up within three years,” warned Hassan Abbas-nejad, an official of the Environmental Protection Organization in West Azerbaijan province.
Abbas-nejad had reported earlier that the deepest part of the lake is now only two meters (6 1/2 feet), and warned against increased salinity and calamitous problems for the region’s ecology and climate.
The increase in the salt concentration and the decrease in the oxygen level from the 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.
As the main causes of the shrinkage of the lake, Abbas-nejad cited a high evaporation rate, the reduction in the amount of water that flows into the lake, low rainfall and overexploitation of underground water resource in the region.
Two months ago, Abbas-nejad announced the creation of a working group to find ways to save the lake, including pumping water into the lake from rivers, cloud seeding, restricting the use of the nearby underground water resources and changing the irrigation systems used in the surrounding farmlands.
Physically, the most notable feature of the lake nowadays is how far one must walk across salt flats just to reach the water. Along the way, one will pass docks standing far from the water and boats locked in salt where they hit bottom as the water retreated.
The receding water has also affected tourism, with planned hotel projects idled since investors are reluctant to continue.
Beyond tourism, the salt-saturated lake threatens agriculture nearby, as storms sometimes carry the salt far afield. Many farmers worry about the future of their lands, which for centuries have been famous for apples, grapes, walnuts, almonds, onions, potatoes as well as aromatic herbs
“The salty winds not only will affect surrounding areas, but also can damage farming in remote areas,” said Masud Mohammadian, an agriculture official on the eastern side of the lake, told The Associated Press.
Other officials echoed the dire forecast.
Masud Pezeshkian, a Majils deputy from Tabriz, said, “The lake has been drying up, but neither government nor local officials have taken any steps so far.”
Official reports blame the drying mainly on a decade-long drought, and peripherally on diversion of water from the feeding rivers for farming. Officials put five percent of the blame on dams. 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 across the lake from Tabriz to Urumiyeh, for which no environmental feasibility study was reportedly conducted.
Environmentalists believe the roadway 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 long after that, 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.
In April, the Iranian government announced a three-pronged effort to save the lake: a cloud-seeding program to increase rainfall; a lowering of water diverted to irrigation; and feeding the lake with remote sources of water.
Mohammad-Javad Mohammadizadeh, vice president in charge of environmental affairs, said the government approved the three-part approach.
Some experts termed the weather control portion of the program as only a “symbolic action,” saying the best answer would be to release more water currently being held back by dams. The evaporation rate has been three times the rainfall rate, making the rivers’ historic role vital to sustaining the lake, they argue.
“The lake is in such a misery because of the dams,” Esmail Kahram, a professor in Tehran’s Azad University and a prominent environmentalist, told The Associated Press.
Three-fifths of the lake has dried up and salt saturation has now reached some 350 milligrams per liter, more than quadruple the 80 milligrams in the 1970s, he said.