RA AUTHORITIES MADE NO CONCESSIONS TO

arminfo
2007-11-01 17:32:00

ArmInfo. The term of fulfillment of environmental liabilities of the
‘Armenian Copper Project’ (ACP) has not been extended by RA parliament,
RA Minister of Nature Protection Aram Harutyunyan told ArmInfo.

As he said, during the recent visit of deputies, the government
members and public organizations to the Alaverdi metallurgical complex,
belonging to ACP, its management presented the enterprise’s technical
upgrading plan aimed at reduction of effluents of sulfur dioxide. In
particular, the minister said, the complex’s management acquired but
not yet adjusted the equipment installation for parallel production
of recycled material. from sulfur dioxide (sulfur trioxide CO2). The
main source of the atmospheric air contamination are just the sulfur
dioxide effluents which should be either filtered or turned into
a industrial plaster by chemical processing. There is no powerful
filters at the enterprise and the parallel production of plaster from
CO2 has not been adjusted as yet.

Harutyunyan added that the enterprise pays 150-170 mln drams annually
to the state budget in the line of nature management.

According to the data of Alaverdi automatic environment monitoring
centers, the effluents of sulfur dioxide from Alaverdi plant today
exceed the norm 15 times. In case if the plant does not reduce the
level of effluents by the end, 2008, it will be obliged to pay a
fine of 1 bln 200 mln drams, that is set out in the annex to RA Law
"on Environmental Payments and Payments for Nature Management".

Independent experts think that $40-50 mln should be spent to implement
new technologies at the plant.