Environmental official: Particulate matter in Iranian cities is carcinogenic and on par with radioactive materials
A day after the head of the parliament's energy commission said that "if the use of diesel fuel is stopped, 25 percent of the country will go into a blackout," the head of the National Center for Weather and Climate Change of the Iranian Environmental Protection Organization announced that the suspended particles currently released into the air of Iranian metropolises are "carcinogenic and on a par with radioactive substances."
According to ISNA news agency, Mehdi Mirzaei Qomi, head of the National Air Center, said on Wednesday, February 26: "According to statistics from the World Health Organization, suspended particles less than 2.5 microns, which are considered the main cause of air pollution in the country's metropolises, are among the first group of carcinogenic substances and are on the same level as radioactive substances."
In this regard, referring to the highly polluting fuel mazut, he said that the quality of fuel used by industries in Iran has declined instead of improving, and "fixed sources of pollution in our country have shifted to using substandard fuels."
According to Mehdi Mirzaei Qomi, more than 10,000 tons of suspended particles less than 2.5 microns are produced annually in Tehran, and a 2018 World Bank study shows that air pollution causes $2.6 billion in damage to Tehran annually, and this figure has been reported to be $7 billion for the entire country.
Despite these risks to the health of citizens, Fereydoun Abbasi, head of the Parliament's Energy Commission, said in a meeting on Tuesday, February 27, that "if the use of diesel fuel is stopped, 25 percent of the country will go into a blackout."
Speaking at a meeting at the Student Mobilization Organization, he added: "The country needed 193 million cubic meters of gas during the recent blackouts, but we could have injected 80 million cubic meters of gas into the network; however, we must have 110 million liters of liquid fuel daily, including diesel and diesel fuel, to compensate for this shortage."
Mr. Abbasi went on to criticize the way the country's energy sector is managed, saying that "there is no management coherence" between the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Energy, and the Atomic Energy Organization.
The surge in domestic electricity consumption in recent weeks has led the government to use highly polluting diesel fuel in power plants, to the point where air pollution in major cities, especially Tehran, has exceeded the red level and reached the extremely dangerous "purple" level.
This is while Iranian authorities have blamed the public for their high consumption of electricity and gas, even though, according to official statistics, on average, only a third of the country's electricity and about half of its gas are consumed in the domestic sector.
On Wednesday, the head of the Laboratory Affairs Department of the General Environmental Protection Department of Markazi Province announced the extremely severe deterioration of the situation in Arak, saying that "the air in Arak has been placed in a state of emergency and red for all groups."
Alireza Mehrabian added in an interview with IRNA that the Arak air quality index, with particles less than 2.5 microns and sulfur dioxide pollution, reached 163 as of 10 am today, indicating a red status and unhealthy air conditions for all groups.
On the same day, Kourosh Mohammadi, head of the Social and Environmental Commission of the Islamic City Council of Isfahan, said that "over the past month, the air pollution index has sometimes reached above 200, which is very unhealthy, which poses a serious threat to the health of citizens." He said, "Recent studies show that in previous years we have been oblivious to the issue of air pollution and the path we have taken in this regard has been wrong."
Source: Radio Farda
