Iran, West Azerbaijan: With the starting of operation of the new dams in the province 1.8 billon meters cubed Water sources will add to our water saves said Seyyed Jala Torabi the local officer to Islamic republic news agency (IRNA).
Torabi also told IRNA that new 10 dams that are constructing have the capacity to save 2.39 billion meter cubed per year. He also mentioned that they have started to study to build another four dams with the capacity of 233 million meter cubed per year.
Torabi mentioned the West Azerbaijan province has the capacity of 10 billion meter cubed water per year that 7.5 of it are surface waters and rest are from underground streams. 3.5 billion meter cubed of this water currently is consuming that 1.7 billion meter cubed of it is from underground resources.
Building another 10 barrages in watershed of Lake Urmia in west Azerbaijan province happens while 63% of the lake already dried up and despite what government officials promised to stop building dams and there is no serious action to prevent this environmental disaster. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the Iranian president said that he sends an emergency order to stop building new dams but they are still just on the papers and not in the action.
Global environment and local expert’s emphasis that main reason of the drying up of the lake is the construction many dams without scientific background and increased water diversion for irrigated agriculture within the lake's watershed. They put the blame on wrong environmental policies and mismanagement.
According to the reports of the United Nations environment program (UNEP) the lake has been facing gradually decrease in the level of the water in last 15 years but the government officers try to deny it and even they claim that the water level has been increased.