Photos by Majid Rostami, Mehr News Agency
Iranian Parliament calls for immediate attention to save Lake Urmia
Twenty Majlis lawmakers have written a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for immediate action to save Lake Urmia and prevent the environmental degradation of the body of water. The surface of the salt water lake recently turned red due to a phenomenon known as red tide.
Experts have long warned that natural factors, coupled with
human activity, will cause Lake Urmia to dry up in the near future if nothing is
done.
Meanwhile, the deputy director of Iran's Environmental Protection Organization
has said evaporation due to microscopic changes in magnesium compounds in the
water turned the lake red.
"Salts containing magnesium in the lake have been concentrated as a result of
the evaporation process. Such compounds give the water a red tone," Mohammad-Baqer
Sadouq told the Mehr News Agency on Wednesday.
Declining rainfall, climate change, and rising temperatures
are accelerating the evaporation process at the lake, Sadouq noted.
Environmentalist Masoud Baqerzadeh-Karimi has dismissed the claim that
wastewater is the cause of the rare red tide phenomenon, adding that if that
were the case, the lake water would have turned red many years ago.
The director of the West Azarbaijan Province Department of the
Environment, Hassan Abbasnejad, believes that a type of algae is responsible for
the red tides.
"Dunaliella salina is a type of algae that creates a red substance in order to
adapt to salty environments and survive," he explained.
Lake Urmia, which is located in northwestern Iran, has a
surface area of approximately 5,200 square kilometers.
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