DELAYED-ACTION MINE MAY BE LAID IN SEVAN, ECOLOGISTS STATE

YEREVAN, APRIL 6, NOYAN TAPAN. A delayed-action mine – this is how
the environmental community has defined the project of transferring
Ararat gold-mining enterprise to the area of Sevan basin. The Canadian
company Sterlight Gold LTD intends to implement the project through
its Armenian subsidiary. The company held on April 5 public hearings
on the issue. According to chairman of the Union of Greens of Armenia
Hakob Sanasarian, the hearings “should have been stopped at the very
beginning” since the project contradicts most of the environmemtal
laws, first of all, the Law on Lake Sevan. For example, it is laid
out in the law that ore processing activities are forbidden in the
catchment basin of Lake Sevan, whereas the the factory carries out
gold ore processing and dressing activities with the use of such
environmentally dangerous substances as cyanides. The tranfer of
the factory is conditioned by the bad state of the railway from
the mine in Sotk to the Ararat factory, as a result of which ore
transportation is quite costly. The company claims that in case of
such a transfer and the consequent profits it will operate the mine
for about 10 years, creating jobs and promoting the development of the
local community. The company’s assuarances that it will take all the
necessary measures for environmemtal protection did not meet with the
ecologists’ understanding. For exapmle, it is claimed the project of
tailing pits excludes any flows into the lake. Yet it is well known
that over 70% of man-caused accidents in the world are connected to
tailing pits. The explanations provided by the experts maintaining
that the global experience of such enterprises should be adopted were
not accepted by the ecologists who believe that the best experience
lies in observing the law, because the whole Sevan basin may become
a death zone even in case of a single accident.