ARMENIA: URANIUM EXPLORATION PLANS PROVOKE FEARS
By Arpi Harutiunian

Journal of Turkish Weekly

ews.php?id=61471
Nov 19 2008
Turkey

Multi-million dollar project leaves villagers worried that their
health will suffer.

The villagers of Lernadzor in the southern hills of Armenia are
alarmed at plans to prospect for Uranium ore in the area, nearly
forty year after a local mine was closed, allegedly due to a fatal
accident linked to radiation poisoning.

In April this year, a contract was signed between the Armenian
environment minister, Aram Harutiunian, and the Russian company
Atompredmedzoloto to mine uranium throughout Armenia.

The hills around Lernadzor, in the Syunik region, 340 kilometres
south of the Armenian capital Yerevan, are a prime candidate for
exploratory work, because the region is well known as a source of
uranium since Soviet times. Experts believe there are thousands of
tonnes of ore still in the ground.

Atompredmedzoloto is the world’s second biggest uranium miner,
dominating the market in Russia.

The Armenian and Russian partners have said they will start prospecting
by means of drilling in the hills near the villages of Lernadzor,
Pukhrut and Katnarat. If they find sufficient amounts of uranium,
as they expect, they will start to mine them from 2010.

Harutiunian said that the exploration project will not pose any
danger and all work will be done strictly in accordance with Armenian
legislation.

"There are no grounds for concern because we will monitor…the
prospecting," said Harutiunian. "And that means that nothing is
threatening the environment."

Sergei Kirienko, the former Russian prime minister who is general
director of Rosatom, the Russian state corporation which owns
Atompredmedzoloto, said that depending on the amount of uranium they
discover, the company could invest tens of millions of dollars in the
Armenian project. He also emphasised that the uranium would benefit
Armenia’s nuclear power industry.

A new venture, the Armenian-Russian Mining Company, was launched in
Yerevan in 2008 to develop the project. "By our calculations, the
joint venture ought to completely cover Armenia’s supplies of uranium,
which is [an important] factor in its energy security," said Kirienko.

He said that a joint team of Armenian and Russian specialists had
already identified the areas they wished to prospect – the ones in
Syunik amongst them.

However, both locals and environmentalists are alarmed by the news.

"We heard about this [exploration work] only from news broadcasts,
we weren’t asked what we wanted or what we should do so that the
village doesn’t suffer," said Lernadzor elder Styopa Petrosian. "We all
know that uranium is a radioactive substance which can very quickly
create levels of radioactivity that directly affect the environment
and people’s health."

"If work begins on extracting uranium, Armenia will turn into a
disaster zone," said Hakob Sanasarian, a leading green activist. "This
kind of mining could be environmentally destructive for such a small
country."

Villagers in Lernadzor say that in the 1970s there was a brief period
of uranium mining during which several miners reportedly died and
the mine was abruptly shut down. There was no explanation given for
the closure.

"I remember just like it was today how the whole village heard that
several people had died in the mine, but no one found out what happened
and why," said 70-year-old Babken Gevorgian.

"All the conversations were about how the miners died from high levels
of radiation," said Vladik Martirosian, head of the environmental
organisation Khustup and an engineer in the environmental department
of the nearby Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Factory. "I think that was
what happened because we did not even see their bodies. They shut
the mine and they also shut our mouths."

IWPR approached Armenia’s ministry of energy and natural resources
about why the mine was closed, but officials were unable to respond
to our enquiries.

Another cause for concern is the proximity of the projected exploration
work to Armenia’s biggest and richest national park, Shikahogh. The
director of Shikahogh, Ruben Mkrtchian, is resolutely opposed to the
uranium extraction project.

"The distance between [proposed exploration area] and Shikahogh is
less than 50 km," said Mkrtchian. "That means that [if] mines open, the
national park will be subjected to radiation. Animals will definitely
get sick because of this and trees will start to wither. If that
happens, the whole ecological balance of the forest will be disrupted."

Scientist and academician Sergei Grigorian, who will lead the
prospecting work, says that contemporary mining methods are safe and
that mining will not pose any environmental hazards. He said that the
more dangerous process of uranium enrichment would take place not in
Armenia, but in a joint Russian-Kazak centre in the city of Angarsk
in Siberia.

Environmentalists say they have not been convinced. Eveline Ghukasian,
deputy director of the Institute of Hydrology and Fish-Breeding
in the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, said, "In Syunik
[region], where the environment has already been polluted because of
large-scale mining work, the last thing we need is radiation caused
by the extraction of uranium. Starting up the mines could have not
just irreversible environmental effects, but cause early death,
cancers and birth defects."

Local officials say they are satisfied with the government’s assurances
about the safety of the project.

But villagers like Haik Minasian, 20, are sceptical. "Because local
officials support these government decisions, I am sure that our
protests won’t be heard, they will start looking for uranium and the
effect on us, local people, will be lethal," he said. "One day we’ll
go to sleep and we won’t wake up."