Financial Tribune - The project to transfer wastewater from nine counties in Isfahan Province to Mobarakeh Steel Company -- Iran's biggest steelmaker located in the same province -- was launched on Friday.

"A contract was signed in 2013 between Isfahan's Water and Wastewater Engineering Company and the giant steelmaker to supply a part of wastewater from the province to the complex," Hamidreza Azimian told the Persian-language economic daily Donya-e-Eqtesad.

The project cost $61 million and was aimed at tapping into unconventional water resources like reclaimed water, fighting the crippling drought in the central plateau and safeguarding the environment as releasing untreated wastewater in to the ecosystem could result in irreparable damage, he said.