Abadan’s wastewater treatment plant will be launched by mid-July, managing director of Khuzestan Water and Wastewater Company said.
“The project has registered 70% progress and 500 km of the network have been laid as well,” Mohammad Reza Karaminejad was also quoted as saying by ISNA.
“In 2016, the construction of five wastewater treatment plants in Khorramshahr, Abadan, Shadegan, Bandar Imam Khomeini and Mahshahr [all in Khuzestan Province] started,” he said.
“However, the projects were halted due to financial issues after making 60% physical progress.”
Karaminejad noted that it took a while to resolve the problems and since the beginning of the current Iranian year (March 2021), their construction process resumed and Shadegan plant began operating last month.
“The remaining three plants will become operational within a year. The total investment for all the five treatment plants is about $50 million and they will have a total capacity of 300,000 cubic meters per day,” he said.
The first phase of the wastewater treatment plant in Shadegan County has the capacity to treat 20,000 cubic meters of effluent per day. It will help preserve the city’s underground water resources and optimize wastewater for agriculture, as reclaimed wastewater is suitable for farming.
The plant’s development plan will start soon and upon the completion of second phase, the facility’s processing capacity will reach 26,000 cubic meters per day.
Water-intensive industries are almost wiping out the limited water resources in most provinces, including Khuzestan, Qom, Yazd and Isfahan, and the need to recycle and reuse wastewater has become a do-or-die issue.
One effective approach is to stop tapping into the dwindling underground water tables and build as many wastewater treatment plants as possible to recycle not only industrial but also household sewage.
Industries, Farms, Green Spaces
The Energy Minister said on Sunday that allocation of wastewater to industrial and agricultural sectors is one of the major programs of the Energy Ministry.
“Protecting water and soil resources is the most important thing we should do to develop green space and natural resources to help maintain these two vital elements,” Ali Akbar Mehrabian was also quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
“One of the ways to protect water is to use wastewater in industries, farms and green spaces,” he added.
According to the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran, it is ready to supply at least 15 million cubic meters of treated wastewater to Tehran Municipality a year for watering parks and green spaces.
Tehran Municipality uses 150 million cubic meters of water from ground resources annually while the water crisis is causing serious concerns. The municipality is using 400,000 cubic meters of water every day, all of which are pumped from underground tables that are in bad shape.
To help reduce this excessive use from these rapidly diminishing underground resources, the Energy Ministry and TM signed a contract last year, based on which the latter is obliged to use recycled wastewater.
Based on the contract, TM is required to meet its daily need for watering parks and green spaces from unconventional sources, namely treated wastewater.
Wastewater is playing an increasingly important role in conserving water resources in most countries.
Insufficient treatment of wastewater and fecal sludge spreads disease and is a driver of antimicrobial resistance. Demand for wastewater as a reliable source of water and nutrients for agriculture is growing in response to population growth, urbanization, increasing water scarcity and the effects of climate change.
Safe sanitation systems are critical to protect public health. WHO is leading efforts to monitor the global spread of sanitation-related diseases and access to safely managed sanitation and wastewater treatment, as well as factors that enable or hinder progress under the sustainable development agenda.
The population covered by the national wastewater network has reached over 30 million.
There are over 220 wastewater treatment plants in Iran and total sewage treatment capacity has surpassed 11 million cubic meters per day. Over 66,000 km of wastewater pipelines have been laid across the country and 300 cities are connected to the rapidly expanding system.
Approximately 7.5 billion cubic meters of usable water are produced annually in Iran, of which 4.3 bcm are wasted and less than 25% are recycled.
While 48% of the treated wastewater are used in the farming sector, 45% enter surface waters, less than 0.5% is used by industries and 5% irrigate urban green spaces.
