TEHRAN, Jul. 29 (MNA) – A Ministry of Energy official has said Lake Urmia water absorption has now exceeded 3bn cubic meters.


Gholamreza Hashemi told reporters on Thursday that the amount of water had been up 1bn cubic meters compared to that in the same time last year; “precipitation this year has been so far 345 milliliters, which shows a rise of 20 per cent compared to the few-years average and 1 per cent decline compared to that last year; effective we believe, has been patrolling of the region through active patrol teams which had been supervising establishment of illegal wells and draining of underground water,” he emphasized. “Sealing of 3,000 illegal wells are planned; in recent four months, 837 such illegal wells have also been sealed.”

“With agricultural wells, we have also plans to disconnect 7,563 legal wells in the upcoming agricultural year, with electricity of 233 wells having been disconnected already,” Hashemi detailed. “The Ministry of Energy has exhausted all academic capacities and plans to revive Lake Urmia and bringing a general balance to water sector of the province; such activities will have yielded more than 90 million cubic meters of water saved between 2016-20; according to a 12-year planning, water reserves will considerably improve and will compensate for the deficits as well,” he concluded.

By Mehr News Agency