|
KAROUN must not be
fated like the ARAL Sea and the Mesopotamian Marshland
Translated by:
Fereshteh Movasaghnejad,
Leila Bandari
Dear Mr. president
As you know the plan
for Karoun water transfer for agricultural usages has faced protests.
Since this plan license is issued before the approval of the third
Development Plan, no environmental assessment is done for this plan
with all its consequences and different aspects. Since this plan in
the case of implementation would lead to many hazardous results, Earth
watchers Center finds it necessary to refer to some points about the
environmental hazards of this plan.
UNEP has warned
Iranian Department Of Environment (DOE) against catastrophes happening
in the Southwest of Iran and Iraq south in the scale of what happened
in the Aral Sea and Amazon Forests. For this purpose, it seems useful
to refer briefly to these greatest environmental catastrophes.
For centuries, the
Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers have provided the Aral Sea with
constant fresh water enriching its mineral composition and promoting
diverse marine life.
Fifty years ago, in
an effort to booster Russia’s textile industry, the water from
Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya Rivers was transferred to White Gold” fields,
the cotton farms of Uzbekistan and in this way, they increased cotton
plants from 3.5 hectares to 7.5 hectares.
The results of these
ambitions revealed in the 1980s. The amount of the water flowing into
Aral sea decreased to one tenth of 1950 and its area reduced to one
third of its natural measure and retreated 100 kms and its salinity
increased.
The sea fishing
ports of "Muynak" in Uzbekistan and "Aralsk" in Kazakhstan was
destroyed and deserted entirely. Fishing industry and over sixty
thousands jobs have been lost. Most of the cotton fields have been
lost due to environmental change. The irreparable economic costs were
not the only consequences of improper decisions of Russian rulers, but
more disastrous was the increase of water salinity and depriving five
millions of people from potable water. Million tons of contaminated
dust is carried each year by wind and deposited on crop land and
populated areas. People confront epidemics of lung and respiratory
diseases, skin and throat cancers and anemia belonging to the epidemic
proportions all brought on by toxic dust. Based on the UNESCO reports,
more and more pregnant women fall in hazardous situation, for the
unhealthy water. Most babies come to the world, dead or malformed so
that this region has the highest rate of baby’s death in the world.
The second case
concerns the Mesopotamian Marshland. According to the reports of UNEP,
90% of the largest marshland of the Middle East has changed to a salty
desert by human artifacts. Settled in the end of the Karkheh River on
borders of Iran and Iraq, this marshland is fed by Tigris and
Euphrates and Karkheh Rivers. In the past 40 years, Iraq and Turkey
have built 30 huge dams on the two rivers of Tigris and Euphrates.
The huge projects of water diversion such as Sadam Channel have
decreased the marshland area to one-tenth of its natural measure.
There is a water war
between Iraq and Turkey. It is not wise to expect Turkey Government to
do environmental assessment in building Ataturk Dam with the capacity
of 30 BCM water storage. Likely, Sadam Government was unexpected to
stop water transfer projects with water capacity of more than two
times that of the two rivers. But it can be expected that the Islamic
Republic of Iran would transfer water from Karoun and Dez headstreams
on the basis of a comprehensive land use planning. Unfortunately, not
only this minimum expectation is met, but so far a comprehensive plan
for Karoun water Resources and Spending is not prepared yet.
Mesopotamian Marshland
(2000)
Mesopotamian Marshland
(1973)
In our opinion, the
major fault of our environmental problems with witch we are now
confronted and have led to unpleasant economic and social
consequences, falls with lack of land use planning. Despite the
emphasis put on land use planning in the third and fourth development
plan, the lack of it has resulted in the prevalence of sectoral
approach on planning. In the context of apparently attractive
policies such as “water transfer from waterlogged plains to
aquitards”, the situation aggravates.
At present, Energy
Ministry issues licenses for water spending on the basis of
accumulative volume which is not a reasonable basis at all. It seems
as if this ministry does not consider the geological structures of
upstream and downstream even in issuing the same licenses. Considering
the specifications of arid and semi-arid regions, namely the short
period of precipitation and strong fluctuations of dry year and wet
year period, as well as the increase of sewage inflow density
(including agricultural, industrial, hospital and domestic sewages),
we notice that water transfer has deteriorated the critical conditions
of Karoun.
Mr. president! On
the basis of principles of environment protection we regard it our
duty to demand your Excellency to prevent Karoun water transfer and
make Environment Protection Organization prepare the environmental
assessment of Karoun Water Transfer in order to reveal what
consequences these plans have had for the upstream and downstream
lands, and also Energy Ministry be made to prepare the comprehensive
plan for Resources and Spending of Karoun Area and make it approved by
Water
High Council.
.
Sir, at present
thirty percent of Khouzestan province is desert, where 700,000
hectares are threatened by wind erosion and sand-dune. Now that the
environmental disaster of the great project of Aral water transfer is
revealed to all around the world, please don’t let it to be repeated
in Iran.
Sincerely yours,
Earth Watchers
Center
Home
|
