To preserve shrinking groundwater resources and use unconventional sources in Khorasan Razavi Province, an agreement has been signed between the National Water and Wastewater Engineering Company of Iran (Abfa) and Rokh Steel Company in Torbat Heydariyeh County, deputy managing director at the provincial Water and Wastewater Company said.
“The water company will annually supply 3.6 million cubic meters of reclaimed wastewater to the steelmaker,” Mousa Alavi was also quoted as saying by the Energy Ministry’s news portal Paven.
A 350-km sewage collection pipeline gathers all the effluent in the city and, after treating it, transfers the water to the steel mill through a 40-kilometer pipe, he added.
The plant uses activated sludge (AS) method to process sewage, which consists of three main components, namely an aeration tank, a settling tank and a return activated sludge.
It is equipped with axial flow pumps to transfer nitrified mixed liquor from the aeration zone to the anoxic zone for denitrification.
“Withdrawal from renewable water resources in Khorasan Razavi Province has reached disturbing levels,” alavi said, adding that at least 25% of what is being consumed now belong to future generations.
Referring to measures to reverse the prohibitive consumption trend, he said development of wastewater treatment plants is a top priority.
The water official said people in Iran’s most important religious province have not yet recognized the scale and scope of the water crisis. “It is the company's responsibility to spread awareness. If not, a bad situation will get worse,” he added.
More than 30 million pilgrims from in and outside Iran visit Mashhad, the provincial capital and major shrine city, every year.
Sangan Steel Company
Another agreement was signed last Monday between Abfa and Sangan Steel Company in Khaf County in the drought-stricken province of Khorasan Razavi.
“As per the contract, the steelmaker will not only expand wastewater collection network in Taibad in the eastern Khorasan Razavi Province but also build a sewage treatment facility in the next two years,” Katayoun Delzendeh, deputy director of Planning and Development Department at the provincial Water and Wastewater Company, said.
“The plan entails laying a 135-km pipeline to collect sewage produced by 15,000 households. Once completed, the plant’s treated wastewater will be sold to the steelmaker for the next 20 years.”
According to the official, the project, aimed at conserving as much water as possible by drawing on unconventional resources, is estimated to cost $20 million and the steel producer will be supplied with at least 82 million cubic meters of recycled effluent during 20 years.
The Taibad plant will have the capacity to process 14,000 cubic meters of wastewater per day, 80% of which are expected to be delivered to Sangan Steel Company.
Referring to similar moves in other dry regions, Delzendeh noted that an agreement was signed between Abfa and Shadegan Steel Company in Khuzestan Province last week.
“The water company will supply 8 million cubic meters of reclaimed water per year to the steelmaker over 25 years,” she said.
“Water-intensive industries are almost wiping out the limited groundwater 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 build as many wastewater treatment plants as possible to recycle not only industrial but also household sewage.
There are over 220 wastewater treatment plants in Iran and total sewage treatment capacity has surpassed 11 million cubic meters per day.
Of the total 7.5 billion cubic meters of usable water that can be treated in Iran annually, less than 25% are recycled, Abfa statistics show.
Pragmatic Solution
While the use of reclaimed wastewater has been recognized as a critical and pragmatic solution to deal with water scarcity across the globe, it is regrettable that in some regions of Iran, including Khomein County in Markazi Province, industrialists and farmers still insist on extracting water from depleting ground resources instead of tapping into unconventional options.
According to Yousef Erfani-Nasab, the head of the provincial Water and Wastewater Company, as there is a small market for recycled water, it is poured into rivers, and the odor has made life miserable for residents in and around small towns of the county over the last 10 years.
“A paradigm shift is necessary to promote an economic system in which wastewater is considered a precious resource rather than a liability,” he said.
“Only a fraction of treated wastewater produced in Khomein County’s Wastewater Treatment Plant is used in industries and the rest is dumped into rivers.”
Treatment capacity of Khomein sewage treatment plant is 4.5 million cubic meters a year, of which under 2 million cubic meters are used by municipalities and steel, petrochemical and automotive plants.
