Iran’s environmentalists and government experts know one of the reasons which they say is responsible for the water shortage in the central and south-east of Iran: the regime’s mafia-controlled industries and water devouring factories like the iron and steel production, petrochemical factories, and powerhouses.
These factories are all in the hands of the regime’s elements and people close to it, and institutions in the hand of them, or at least the CEOs and heads of these systems are from the regime’s elements. And the created profit by these factories is the favor of the regime’s goals and not of the people and progression of the country. A simple example is its nuclear, missile, and weapon projects.
Useless and unscientific dam and water projects have destroyed the country’s water resources, created a water disaster, and destroyed the country’s agriculture so that they are forced to import many agriculture products.
In a dry country like Iran, high water-consuming factories must be built in cold and water-rich areas, so that they would not create any water problems for the people.
A regime expert in a state television interview about this subject said: “Factories belonging to high water consuming industries such as steel mills are built all over the world by the seas, but in Iran, the largest of these factories were established in desert and land areas such as Yazd and Mobarakeh of Isfahan and alone they have devoured 5.6 percent of the total water of Isfahan.” (State-TV Ofogh Channel, November 20, 2021)
The state-run daily Hamdeli explaining the situation in Isfahan wrote: “Isfahan is a water-scarce city with a river called Zayandeh Rood. Unfortunately, in recent decades, they have imposed a double burden on this river. They created water-consuming industries such as Mobarakeh Steel, Zobahan, etc. in this city. It is worth mentioning that the production of each kilo of steel consumes about 30,000 liters of water. These industries are certainly devouring the Zayandeh Rud River water.” (State-run daily Hamdeli, November 23, 2021)
The state-run daily Resalat wrote about the construction of water-consuming factories in provinces such as Yazd, Isfahan, and Khuzestan and the problems that have been created for the people:
“We have established industries in the places that have the greatest decrease in the static level of water and, under the pretext of the investments that have been made, they (the regime’s water mafia) seek to transfer water from one point to another; In addition to the fact that there is such a problem between the provinces, we also face such a challenge within the provinces.” (State-run daily Resalat, November 25, 2021)
Another daily, Farhikhtegan, while referring to the problems of the people, especially farmers in the central and southern provinces of the country, wrote about the destructive impact of water-consuming industries and the regime’s water looting in these provinces, wrote:
“A load of industries in the center of Iran is much higher than the capacity of these areas, and if we think that these problems can be solved by transferring water, it is not true, and we cannot and should not have such an idea.
“Now, because of specific issues, they do not raise these issues much. We have power plants in Qom, Arak, etc., which are very water-consuming, but they are never mentioned. A large part of the water that goes from Karun and Dez to Qom, etc., is not only for Qom, is in the name of Qom, but it is used in the mentioned power plants.” (State-run daily Farhikhtegan, November 24, 2021)
The question is, what are these special power plants and industries, and why is nothing said about them?
The answer is that what has been said about hydropower, powerhouses, steel mills, petrochemicals, and other water-consuming industries is not ‘hidden,’ but ‘high-consumption’ facilities and power plants that ‘never come up’ belong to specific military industries, that the issue of their high water-consumption has ‘never been raised.’
Years before the water crisis in these provinces became acute, many experts warned that plundering the water of rivers and aquifers would challenge the people, especially farmers, and the country’s environment, but the leaders of this regime did not heed these warnings.
According to the state-run website Fararoo, November 25, only for ‘production of 30 million tons of steel, 21 billion cubic meters’ of water belonging to the people is devoured by the steel industry.
And the state-run website Bahar news completed this issue and wrote: “Many steel mills have their wells, and along with 800,000 other wells in Iran, they are emptying Iran’s underground aquifers daily.” (state-run website Bahar News, November 6, 2021)
