ENVIROMENTALS WARN SEVAN COULD BECOME ECOLOGICAL DISASTER ZONE
Astghik Khachatryan
20 09/03/31 | 15:12
Ecology important
At a press conference held today, Garineh Danielyan, President of the
"Association for Human Sustainable Development" sounding a public
warning regarding the future of Lake Sevan.
"At issue is the fact that there are mines around Lake Sevan. In the
end we will destroy the Sevan beachfront, the tourist industry and
agriculture and develop the mining sector instead," Ms. Danielyan
warned.
What most worries the environmental community is while ore has been
transported from the mines up till now, with the advent of flotation
factories, the entire reprocessing process can take place in the
Sevan basin itself. The companies to watch out for in this regard
are GeoProMining and Gegamet.
According to Inga Zarafyan, President of the Ecolur Informational
Center, Gegamet has been granted permission to run some mines
at Shorzha and Chil but that the company never informed the
government that it is preparing to reprocess the ore at the Sevan
basin. Ms. Zarafyan claimed that this was the reason that the company
was given the green light by the government in the beginning.
Ms. Zarafyan stated that she and her colleagues had seen the
reprocessing going on and that they had informed the Ministry of
Nature Protection. According to her, the ministry merely saw fit to
send an inspection team to the area, but that the mines themselves
are still operating. She stated that the ministry had stated that
the reprocessing itself most likely should take place in Hrazdan.
Ms. Danielyan noted that GeoProMining still hadn’t been granted a
construction permit for a reprocessing plant at Sevan for the Sotk
gold mine. She said that the issue of exploiting the Sotk mine had
been reviewed during the Soviet period and that a decision had been
reached to extract the ore and transport the ore for reprocessing
to Ararat. Now that GeoProMining has purchased the entire facility
it has decided not to transport the ore. This decision has provoked
the ire of the environmental community and concerned citizens.
The "SOS Sevan" initiative group (Eco-Alliance) calls the Armenian
authorities in the person of the President of Armenia, RA National
Assembly, the Government, National Security Council, as well as all
political parties, non-governmental organizations, international
community, legal authorities to support the public campaign to save
Sevan Lake, one of the major stocks of drinking water of Armenia
and the whole Caucasus region, to show good will and make the
"GeoProMining" Company stop its illegal activity. "We are appealing
to the state authorities to review the contracts with the mentioned
company and declare the given licenses invalid"