DUSHANBE, September 19, 2014, Asia-Plus – Iran is seeking solution to the problems of shortage of fresh water.
An article by Ladane Nasseri entitled “Iran May Import Water From Tajikistan to Avert Crisis” that was posted on Bloomberg on September 19 notes that Iran is considering importing water from neighboring Tajikistan as the government allocated emergency funds to help avert a supply crisis in the capital Tehran.
Iranian officials discussed the possibility of importing water during a trip to Tajikistan this month, the state-run
Mehr
news agency reported without giving specifics, citing the energy minister, Hamid Chitchian.
According to
IRNA
, Vice President for Planning and Strategic Supervision, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said that Iran’s cabinet has made $11 million available to the energy ministry to accelerate the emergency supply of water to Tehran. That will help Iran complete a water-treatment plant and a link from Mamlou dam 45 kilometers east of Tehran,
IRNA
said.
Mehr
reports that during a meeting that took place on September 17, members of the government including the energy, agriculture and interior ministers reviewed options to enforce limits on Tehran residents’ water consumption by installing devices that restrict excessive use or by introducing higher rates for large users.
We will recall that an article “A Pipeline from a Land of Water to a Land of Oil” by Bruce Pannier that was posted on Radio Liberty’s website on August 8 notes that the head of the parliament in Iran”s Khorasan Province, Mohammad Reza Mohsin, on August 6 proposed to get the water from Tajikistan”s Lake Sarez.
Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service, Ozodi, looked into the proposal and its feasibility. Ozodi found the pipeline would need to be some 600 kilometers long to reach from Khorasan to the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) in southeastern Tajikistan.
The distance is not the problem, the terrain is. Lake Sarez is in a remote location. The road, such as it is, that leads to Sarez is barely adequate for a car to pass and more than 20 kilometers from the lake it gives out altogether. The pipeline would require a passage 10 to 12 meters wide. And tremors, avalanches, and mudslides wipe out roads and paths in the region regularly.
Ozodi spoke with Homidjon Oripov, an official in Tajikistan”s energy department, who said there could still be a way to pipe water from Lake Sarez to Iran.
Oripov noted there were plans to build the Dashtijum hydropower plant downstream from Sarez and suggested the water could enter the proposed pipeline after it spills out from the plant.
According to Ozodi, Oripov has been negotiating water exports with Iranian officials since 2012. He told Ozodi the idea of exporting water to Iran goes back some 10 years, when an Iranian company sent a letter about water exports to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon. The Iranian government was prepared to invest $3 billion in a project to bring the water to Khorasan.
Ozodi reported that initial proposal was scrapped, but in 2007 President Rahmon and then-Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad signed an agreement on the export of water from Tajikistan to Iran. And in fact, as of the start of 2013 Tajikistan was supposed to be exporting 1 billion cubic meters of potable water to Iran.
So far, that has not happened.
There have been other means proposed for delivering water. Iran has previously suggested shipping it by rail and sweetened the deal by mentioning it could be an oil-for-water arrangement, and Tajikistan could certainly use the oil. There are plans for construction, starting as soon as next year, of a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Tajikistan railway that would run tantalizingly close to Iran”s northeastern border.
