Dez Dam
The Dez Dam is a large hydroelectric dam built in Iran in 1963 by an Italian consortium.
The dam is on the Dez River, the closest city being Dezful the onlyway to access the dam in the Northwestern province of Khuzestan. It is 214 metres high, making it one of the highest in the world, and has a reservoir capacity of 3,340 million cubic metres. At the time of construction the Dez Dam was Iran's biggest development project. From Andimeshk it is 15 minutes easy drive.
It is also possible to visit powerhouse which is located at the left of the dam in the mountains. The powerhouse has three large turbines made by Siemens.
The current problem with this dam is annual loss of reservoir capacity due to the erosion of soil in upstream areas. it has no educated engineers to remove sludges and clean the lake on regular basis.
Impregilo [1] was involved with building the Dez dam, Iran’s highest. The water from the reservoir went to irrigate 160 square kilometres, only one-fifth of the area that the dam’s designers claimed would be irrigated. The irrigated land was largely for the benefit of foreign agribusiness corporations, including Mitsui, Chase Manhattan, Bank of America, Shell, John Deere and Transworld Agricultural Development Corporation. About 17,000 farmers lost their land to agribusinesses. Years later, many were still landless and jobless. Until the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, all the foreign companies left the area. Dez Dam has now an official web page and visitors are advised to visit the page and get more exact information.
References
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