ArmenPress
Nov 29 2004

ARMENIAN RIVERS ARE NOT AS POLLUTED AS AZERBAIJAN ALLEGES

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 29, ARMENPRESS: Armen Saghatelian, the head of a
center for ecological and noospheric studies, an affiliation of the
Armenian Academy of Sciences, denied Azerbaijan’s allegations that
rivers flowing in from Armenia are polluted heavily with radioactive
substances.
The center will accomplish next December a project for monitoring
of the South Caucasian rivers, assisted by NATO and OSCE Yerevan
office. Saghatelian said samples of water from 13 rivers running
across Armenia to Azerbaijan are taken once a month to check the
volume of their contamination. Similar work is done in Azerbaijan and
Georgia and the data is collected in one center.
He said NATO provides funds for purchase of necessary equipment
while the OSCE office helps to carry out field work.
He said NATO helps also to buy scale spectrometers to decide the
volume of radioactive substances in the rivers, which he said is
important to deny Azerbaijan’s accusations that Armenia pollutes the
rivers with such elements. The project has been carried out in the
South Caucasian republics since 2003 and its overall budget is
500,000 euros.