DOE Chief: National Plan For Revival Of Oroumiyeh Lake Finalized

Bushehr, June 15, IRNA – Vice President and Head of Department of Environment (DOE) announced here Saturday night government’s national plan to revive Oroumiyeh Lake has been finalized and will be ratified for implementation within the next couple of days. “The plan was presented in a meeting last week and is inclusive of the entire concerned organizations’ viewpoints as well as those of a broad spectrum of environmental experts highly specialized in the field,” said Ma’soumeh Ebtekar in a press conference in Bushehr. She said that in accordance with the national plan, the now dying Oroumiyeh Lake will be fully revived within a ten-year period. The DOE chief informed the reporters that meanwhile the revival plan of the marshlands in surrounding areas of Oroumiyeh Lake is proceeding satisfactorily; the dam construction activities in upper lands of the late have been totally abandoned, and water reservation in the existing dams there have been halted. She said that implementing those measures and monitoring them is up to the Oroumiyeh Lake Supreme Water Council and Work Group. “Meanwhile, environmental study of the dams and reconsidering many of the construction activities, including the road that passes through the length of the Oroumiyeh Lake are in the agenda of the DOE,” she said. The vice president said that the region’s farmers are being trained about water management. “A joint project between Japan and the UN Development Program (UNDP) Tehran Regional Office has already started in which in addition to training the farmers in 41 villages on the shores of the Oroumiyeh Lake on water usage pattern and sustainable agricultural activities aimed at lower consumption and returning the used water to the lake is emphasized in it,” said Ms. Ebtekar. Fine dust air pollution addressed The DOE chief also informed the press on measures adopted to encounter the fine dust air pollution problem with which many of the country’s provinces have been entangled in recent years. “In the first session of the Country’s Supreme Environment Protection Council a comprehensive report on the fine dust air pollution and its foreign origin was prepared by the DOE and presently a national work group to encounter the malicious phenomenon has been established and is actively pursuing the matter. Ebtekar said that parallel with that measure a plan for a national move in that respect is prepared that will be ratified during the next session of that council. “A good volume of work in at international cooperation field, too, has been done in this respect, but keeping in mind the insecure conditions and the ongoing terrorist activities there now, many of those measures have remained inactive, which we hope with the restoration of peace and stability there we could resume the environmental measures, including tree planting and moving sand fixation there,” she said. Ebtekar added that meanwhile many of the sources for the fine dust air pollution inside the country, too, have been identified in each province and prioritized for soil fixation and tree planting. She emphasized that since a major part of the fine dust problem has internal origins by implementing proper management inside the country lowering the occurrence of the dust storm to a noticeable extent must be possible./end