🔸Media and social media users in Iran are reporting that the municipal authorities in Aligudarz County, Lorestan Province, have asphalted the bed of a river.

🔸Images of this river—which runs through the middle of the city of Aligudarz and is now completely dry and asphalted—are being reshared on social media.

🔸Mohammad Lotfi Majanai, the mayor of Aligudarz, said on Sunday evening, 25 Mordad, to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that water in this river does not have a permanent flow, and that water stagnation would cause the formation of marshy sludge and bring about environmental and public-health problems for people.

🔸Lotfi, referring to the limited land in the city center, said: “One of the important goals of managing the riverbed is creating new capacities for urban use.”

🔸It is not clear whether this decision by the Aligudarz municipality was made under the supervision of the Department of the Environment.