Two water projects were inaugurated Thursday in western Ilam Province to improve water supply for the region’s agriculture and industries.
Shohadaye Ilam Dam, situated on Galal River, was launched at the weekend, the Energy Ministry news website Paven reported.
Located 35 km west of Ilam City, the provincial capital, the dam can hold 20 million cubic meters of water to be used mainly by Ilam Petrochemical Complex and a gas refinery with the same name.
The petrochemical company manufactures a wide range of products including ethylene, sulfuric acid, ammonia sulfate and crystal melamine among others, and plays a key role in creating jobs in the underprivileged region.
Ilam Gas Refinery supplies gas to the national grid for domestic consumption. It also produces ethane, gas condensates and sulfur.
In addition, the dam, which cost over $14 million, will help control flooding from rivers.
The Energy Ministry and the petrochemical company and gas refinery in Ilam funded the dam project.
35 km west of Ilam City, the new dam can hold 20 million cubic meters of water that will largely be used by a petrochemical company and a gas refinery
Ilam has two other dams that provide potable water for the urban and rural population and generate electricity.
Drinking water for Ilam City and the surrounding regions is supplied by Ilam Dam, 15 km east of the city, which has a storage capacity of 63 mcm.
Water from the dam is also supplied to industries. However, with the new dam, Ilam Dam water will be used exclusively for drinking purposes.
Seimare Dam’s main goal is hydroelectric power generation. The hydroelectric power station adjacent to the reservoir has an installed capacity of 480 megawatts and can generate 850 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. A part of the water in the dam, with a capacity of 3.2 mcm, is used irrigate the farms nearby.
Irrigation Networks
Also on Thursday, a project to irrigate 22,000 hectares of land in the Fakkeh Plains, Dehloran County, was launched.
Water for the plains comes from Karkheh Dam in Khuzestan Province, the largest dam in Iran, via a 39-km tunnel and a 200-km pipeline.
The dam can hold 5.7 billion cubic meters of water. Thanks to the good rains since the beginning of the current water year (Sept 2019), it is now 90% full.
Karkheh Dam irrigates 320,000 hectares of farmland, produce 520 MW of hydroelectric power and prevents downstream floods.
It also feeds two other major plains in Ilam, namely Dasht-e-Abbas and Eyn-e-Khosh plains.
Ilam has the capacity to annually produce over 660,000 tons of food including wheat, barley, corn, sugar beet, grapes, peach, lemon, olive, and walnut.
It also produces 182,000 tons of animal products including red meat, chicken, fish, eggs, honey and milk per year.
