JOINT PROJECT WITH RUSSIA TO MINE URANIUM STIRS ENVIRONMENTAL WORRIES
Marianna Grigoryan

nsightb/articles/eav032609b.shtml
March 26, 2009

It is not just railways, energy and telecommunications that unite
Russian and Armenian business interests. This summer, a controversial
joint project to mine uranium is expected to break ground; a prospect
that some Armenian environmentalists warn could turn Armenia into
"an environmental disaster zone."

The project, launched in February 2008, means fuel for Armenia’s
nuclear power plant and for export. Details about financing are
sketchy, although Armenia and Russia were originally said to be equal
partners in the venture. Russia’s atomic energy agency, Rosatom, has
claimed that it will put in "several million dollars" for research
up until 2010. But the joint enterprise handling the project cannot
elaborate.

Exploration began last fall in the southern region of Syunik, known
for its metal ore riches. The project has so far relied primarily on
Soviet-era data. Rosatom Senior Director Sergei Kirienko projected in
2008 that the sites could contain "up to 60,000 tons" of uranium ore.

Academician and geochemist Sergei Grigorian, who oversees the
geological survey of the Syunik uranium deposits, told EurasiaNet
it is still too soon to speak about exact figures concerning the
deposits. The work, though, he affirmed, "is on the right track."

"I personally suspended exploration work [at this same location] during
the Soviet era, because I believed the exploitation of uranium mines
[in Armenia] was senseless since there were larger deposits in other
Soviet republics," said Grigorian. "But today, when uranium costs up
to $300 per kilogram, exploitation of the [Armenian] deposits will
bring benefits, if the ore is used carefully."

The director of the joint company set up to oversee the project,
the Armenian-Russian Mining Company, adds that for the next two years
the focus will be on geological surveys alone.

"We can’t tell the exact amount of available deposits, but the
extraction will cover quite a large territory in both the northern and
the southern regions of Syunik," said director Mkrtich Kirakosian. The
start of underground survey work, originally expected for this spring,
"might be somewhat delayed" some months as the project waits for
government authorization for the work, he added.

Despite the lack of specifics, environmentalists are already issuing
dire warnings. Syunik already is home to the copper mining works of
Kapan and Kajaran. Inga Zarafian, chairman of the non-governmental
organization Ecolur, said that opening a uranium mine in the area
would greatly increase the ecological hazards.

Traces of heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic have already
been found in the hair of children living near what is expected to
be the uranium project’s primary mining site, Lernadzor, some three
kilometers away from Kajaran. Surveys by the Armenian National Academy
of Science’s Ecosphere Research Center show that ground radiation in
the area exceeds the permitted level by more than three and a half
times; ground contamination by heavy metals is several times higher
than allowed.

Given the risks, public discussions on the mining project are a
must, Zafarian affirms. "Talking about this tomorrow may be too
late," Zarafian said. "The territories are already environmentally
endangered. . . . Now, they are going to exploit uranium mines
there. Imagine what’s going happen to the place!"

Lernadzor village head Stepan Poghosian says that locals are worried
about the health risks once actual mining begins. "Everybody knows
what uranium is. . . . People don’t want to live in a place that may
cause diseases in their children," Poghosian said. "The exploitation
of uranium is not rain, a mudslide or hail, things that villagers
can handle."

Both experts involved in the survey work and the Ministry of
Environmental Protection insist that the project involves no hazards,
and that mining operations will be "transparent."

The uranium deposits are mostly hidden within the ground’s crust
and will be extracted via tunneling, said survey overseer Grigorian,
who seconds the call for a public hearing on the matter. "The mining
might be dangerous if it were, say, in the basin of Lake Sevan, but
there is no such danger because Syunik is a mountainous region,"
said Grigorian. "Maybe a very small area is threatened there, at
the entrance to the tunnel, but the rest of the work will be done
underground. So, the population’s fears of radiation are groundless."

Armenian-Russian Mining Company Director Kirakosian echoes that
line. "It’s too soon to talk about environmental problems because, so
far, it’s just about the survey," he said, adding that all work follows
existing legislation and "observes all environmental requirements."

Environmentalist Hakob Sanasarian, chairman of the Greens’ Union
of Armenia, counters that uranium prospecting at the Syunik
site was stopped for a good reason during the Soviet era. "The
suspension . . . was not a decision that just happened," Sanasarian
said. Grigorian, who worked on the site in Soviet times, however,
maintains that the work stopped only because other sites had larger
deposits. "The environmental hazards threaten to cause genetic
modifications in humans, as well as cancer, and other defects. Nature
will have its revenge one day."

Meanwhile, local residents say they are left in a quandary about
whether to go or to stay. "I don’t know what is going to happen,"
said Lernadzor’s Petrosian. "We have lived here our whole lives . . ."