RIGHT TO WATER VIOLATED IN ARMENIA

14:45 February 10, 2015

Nelli Babayan, Aravot

The right to water is violated in Armenia in 2015. A group of NGOs has
studies and prepared a report on the violations of human rights in
a number of fields in our life with the support of the Open Society
Foundations Armenia. The report has been submitted to the UN Human
Rights Council. “Right to water” section records that the expansion
of mining activities, irresponsible construction of SHPPs and the
increase in fish farms endanger the quality and accessibility of water
in Armenia. Mining pollutes rivers, particularly, transboundary Debed,
Voghji and Aras rivers. These rivers are polluted by those mining
companies, the activities of which are related with these rivers in the
region: particularly, mining activities are carried out by Zangezour
Copper and Molybdenum Combine owned 60% by “Cronimet mining Gmbh”
Company, Kapan Ore Dressing Combine owned by “Dundee Precious Metals
Kapan”, Agarak Copper and Molybdenum Combine owned by “Geopromining
Gold”, Alaverdi copper smelting facility owned by “Armenian Copper
Program” and Akhtala Ore Dressing Combine – owned by “Metal Prince”.

Then referring to Lake Sevan, the report says that despite the ban of
any processing activities in the basin of Lake Sevan – a requirement
prescribed in RA Law “On Lake Sevan”, the lake is polluted because
of the activities of Sotq gold mine developed by “Geopromining Gold”
Company, which established a crushing complex in the lake basin.

“Under the information possessed by the civil society, two rivers
of Lake Sevan basin already have high concentration of arsenic,
antimony and other extremely toxic metals because of the mine
wastes,” the report says. Amulsar gold mine is another potential
source of danger, and, under the report, it’s an open pit mining,
where ore will be dressed on the spot. The report says that the Nature
Protection Ministry has approved the environmental component of the
mine development despite the negative opinion of the Scientific-Expert
Committee on Lake Sevan Preservation. As Inga Zarafyan noted, nothing
has changed in environmental section, as nothing has changed in regard
with Amulsar mine.

“What will change, if it’s an illegal project? The Scientific-Expert
Committee on Lake Sevan Preservation, which issued a negative
opinion to Amulsar project in 2012, refused to provide us the text
of the positive opinion this year. That is, the Nature Protection
Minister had to issue a positive opinion under the press, as its
concerns are reflected in its four requirements. That is, if there
are any requirements to change something negative in the project, the
Ministry must have rejected the project at once. The Amulsar project
says nothing about these requirements. The law doesn’t contain any
provision, which says requirements can be posed to a company, in case
its project doesn’t comply with the law, a negative opinion must have
been issued at once.

Another serious hazard for water resources is SHPPs. Under the report,
there are currently over 150 SHPPs, out of which 100 are located on
the rivers, and currently 16 rivers are in disastrous and 3 are in
critical situation. In this regard Inga Zarafyan said that the public
sector together with the Nature Protection Ministry will conduct a
monitoring of the SHPPs constructed on the rivers and will create a
database in the form of “green passports” to regulate this problem.