Domestic Waste Causes Damage to Armenia’s Rivers More Than Industrial
Emissions

Arminfo
2007-03-23 16:01:00

The household rubbish causes damage to the rivers in Armenia more than
the industrial emissions. Meanwhile, the purification of sewages is
carried out in Armenia’s capital only by aeration and in a mechanical
way, while the main part of drains freely leaks into the nearest
rivulets. The whole epopee of 9480 small and big rivers of Armenia is
displayed in the "Loquacious Wealth" film, the presentation of which
was held yesterday in the UN Armenia Office.

The author of the documentary film is the chairwoman of an "Ecolur"
ecological public organization Inga Zarafyan, the producer is Haik
Kbeyan, the operator – Mkrtich Baroyan. It is remarkable that a
transboundary value of Armenia’s rivers is touched on in the film,
since 80% of waters are carried by the Armenian rivers to the
neighboring Azerbaijan, a part – to Turkey, Iran and Georgia. Based
on this, a responsibility for the "transparency" of waters for Armenia
grows more, however, the assurance of transparency of these waters
monitoring yet fails.

According to the scientific secretary of the Institute of Hydroecology
and Ichthyology of NASA Evelina Ghukasyan, despite the apparent facts
of pollution of the local rivers by domestic and industrial waste, the
mountain rivers with a unique ability to self-purify, reach our
neighbors relatively pure.

Talking of a relativity of the rivers pollution and their natural
aeration ability, the Director of the "Armwaterproject Institute" CJSC
Yuri Javadyan noted that according to investigations, carried out in
2003, the percent of lead, that could ingress in the river from the
existing toxic waste tailing dumps of the mining productions, was
equal to zero in the waters of Armenia’s rivers, while the percent of
sulfur oxide made up 5%.

By the forecasts of FAO, 1,8 bln people in 2005 will live in the
countries and regions that permanently suffer from a lack of water. In
whole, the two third of the world population will face this
problem. The rates of water consumption in Armenia have grown. Thus,
according to the specialists estimations, a degree of evaporation –
drying of sweet water sources has also increased.