OMBUDSMAN ADDRESSED QAJARAN DUST PROBLEM IN REPORT

16:07 April 14, 2015

EcoLur

One of the Nature Protection Ministry’s dereliction of duties is
non-performance of dust monitoring in Qajaran, as the Ombudsman’s
report “On Human Rights Defender’s Activities and Violation of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in Armenia for 2014” says. Making a
reference to EcoLur’s article entitled “Alarm signal from Qajaran:
Our Children Get to Hospital Because of Dust”, the report says,
“Complaints have been received that huge amount of dust is in the air
of Qajaran, which violated many people’s right to live in environment
promoting health and welfare.”

During 2014 Qajaran residents beat alarm signals about huge amount
of dust in the air, particularly outlining that the town is lost in
the dust for 3-4 hours per day because of the operation of Qajaran
copper and molybdenum mine. Qajaran is include in the list of most
risky and largest town, so it can be concluded while implementing
monitoring of Qajaran air basin pollution, it’s necessary to implement
dust monitoring, moreover, the Ministry is aware of this problem.

Nevertheless, only the permissible concentrations of sulphur dioxide
and nitrogen dioxide were studied, which were sampled from 15
observation sites in the town and were considered as within standards.

Dust monitoring is not carried out in Qajaran town because of the
absence of relevant equipment on the spot. Though the Ministry informs
that currently works are carried out for the monitoring of dust in
the atmospheric air in Qajaran town, the problem remains unsolved.

Proposal: to carry out monitoring of permissible concentrations of
dust in the air in Qajaran town in shortest tie limits and to take
urgent measures in case of detecting limit deviations.”