Shocking statements of the head of environmental organization about the water challenge in Iran: We don’t have more ability than this, and if pressure exceeds, the demise of Iran’s land will take place faster.
Although the reality of this catastrophe, the destruction of Iran under the mullahs’ rule, in the words of the head of the regime’s environmental organization, Isa Kalantari, is not something new, it is significant that these words are delivered by a government official.
On Tuesday, April 3, the state-run Etedal newspaper quoting Kalantari’s statements on water shortage in Iran wrote the followings:
• “In the past 35 years, we consumed 120 billion cubic meters of freshwater of hundreds of thousands years’ fossils that forms about 75% of our underground freshwater, of which about 75 billion cubic meters was consumed in the last eight years, which means we plundered the resources!”
• “We increased the population, ignoring the fact that this population should live in a prosperous country. Disregarding the needs of the population, we plundered the resources to meet the (unrealistic) needs.”
• “Today, there are no wetlands with water anymore, from Bakhtegan to Hooralazim, Gavkhooni and Orumiyeh!”
• “Our underground freshwater is becoming salty. The continuation of this process means the (population) depletion of Iran from the south of the Alborz to the free seas in the south and from the east of Zagros to the eastern borders of the country.”
• “We have been a very bad trustee for this 7,000-year-old civilization.”
• “In the global standard, any country that uses 20% of its renewable water each year, there is no danger to its water resources. If 20 to 40% are used, they can renew and provide water resources on a long-term basis, provided that they are managed (correctly). But if they use more than 40%, they enter a crisis. Two countries in the world use more than 40%, the first is Egypt with 46% and the second is Iran with 85%! This means that soon all places in Iran will dry up like Gavkhooni wetland did. Even today, it is too late already.”
• “If we do not change our policies, we will kill this country along with our own generation.”
• “What we are doing with underground water means stealing from the next generation. This means genocide. Not only we use-up and finish the freshwater resources, but also we turn the whole country into a desert.”
• “Gavkhooni, which was alive in the old days without water transfer from Karun River, is dried today. They take away all the water in the upstream of Isfahan. The industry of water-transfer has been created in Isfahan. You cannot concentrate all the water transfer industries in Isfahan. The greenery of Isfahan is more than northern cities of Rasht and Sari. It is not possible to plant a tree on the mountaintop of Safeh Mountain in Isfahan.”
• “There is no longer any potential for the transfer of water from other basins. At least 25% savings must be implemented in the west of the basin, including the west of Isfahan and Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari. It is not possible to use whatever water is at the upstream. Over 450 million cubic meters of upstream water has been stolen and should be returned to the area, there is no other way.
• “I feel the whole country is at risk. We do not have the potential for over-harvesting of underground water. Last year, we imported food for 44 million people and produced food for only 33 million people in the country. We do not have the capability to produce more than that, and if too much pressure is introduced, the death of the land of Iran will happen more quickly.”
