Request to Rouhani to stop water transfer projects from Khuzestan

Environmental groups in Khuzestan have called on the president to order a halt to “destructive” water transfer projects in the province. The organizations’ coordinating council says most of these projects lack environmental permits.

The first meeting of the Khuzestan Environmental Organizations Coordination Council, held in Ahvaz, concluded with the drafting of an open letter addressed to President Hassan Rouhani.

The authors of the letter say that the "exploitative approach" to the resources of Khuzestan Province has caused environmental conditions in the province to cross the threshold of crisis.

Khuzestan environmental organizations believe that the programs that are being implemented contrary to the principles of sustainable development and due to "improper management of the country's water resources and inter-basin water transfer" have irreparable consequences and damages, and in addition to increasing people's problems and expanding migration from Khuzestan, they impose heavy costs on all of Iran.

According to a report by ISNA News Agency on Tuesday, April 18, representatives of environmental organizations have described their protested projects in a letter to the president as "the product of the structural thinking of the monopolistic consulting companies, employers, contractors, and implementers of this unilateral development."

Rising tension, the consequence of destructive plans

The Coordination Council of Khuzestan Environmental Organizations has expressed regret that, amid the growing deterioration of the province's wetlands and the intensification of the dust phenomenon, river water has reached its lowest level in recent years, but the implementation of "numerous and destructive dam-building and water transfer plans on the Karun tributaries" continues.

Protests against water transfer projects from Khuzestan have a long history and have intensified in recent years as the climate situation in the province has become more critical. Protests against inter-basin water transfer projects have repeatedly led to tension and conflict in Khuzestan and some other provinces, such as Isfahan.

About seven years ago (September 27, 2011), Sharif Hosseini, a representative from Ahvaz and secretary of the Khuzestan Assembly of Representatives in the Eighth Parliament, threatened in an interview with Mehr News Agency that if the implementation of the Karun water transfer project to other areas was not stopped, all Khuzestan representatives in the Islamic Consultative Assembly would resign.

According to this plan, which is still controversial, the water of one of the Karun River's branches in "Beheshtabad" in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province was supposed to be transferred to the central plateau and Zayandeh-Rood River basin.

Projects without environmental permits

Members of the Coordination Council of Khuzestan Environmental Organizations have also emphasized in a letter to Hassan Rouhani that several Khuzestan water transfer projects, such as the "Beheshtabad" project, fundamentally lack the necessary environmental permits, and the permit for another project (the Kohrang Tunnel Project) has been revoked.

In the final part of this letter, the President is asked: "Given the dangerous consequences of this practice, which has cast the continuity of life of the Khuzestan Plain into a halo of uncertainty [...], order urgent action to be taken to stop water transfer plans and projects, especially from the Karun branches, and to review the incomplete studies conducted to observe the water rights of rivers, wetlands, and the Khuzestan Plain."

Representatives of Khuzestan environmental organizations have reminded that "responsibility for the social, economic, security, etc. consequences..." and the continued implementation of these "destructive" plans will lie with the responsible agencies, especially the Ministry of Energy.

Powerful contractors and the ongoing dilemma

In March 2016, a conference entitled "Consultation Session on Inter-Basin Water Transfer in the Country" was held in Ahvaz, which was attended by a number of university professors and experts from several provinces, a number of members of parliament, a number of local officials, including the governor of Khuzestan, and representatives of environmental organizations.

According to the IRNA news agency, in the final statement of the conference, the attendees "emphasized the principle that all inter-basin water transfer projects directly cause social, economic, environmental, and security problems and harm in both the source and destination basins," and called for the suspension of these projects until further investigations are conducted.

So far, neither the emphasis of those present at the conference a year and a few months ago, nor the threats of members of parliament seven years ago, nor the increasing protests of citizens in Khuzestan have prevented the continuation of controversial water transfer projects.

Apparently, as representatives of Khuzestan environmental organizations wrote in a letter to Rouhani, these plans are "the product of structural thinking" of powerful companies and contractors, and the government does not have the will or ability to confront them.

Source: DW