YEREVAN, August 26. /ARKA/. Armenian law enforcement agencies have enough leverage to effectively monitor the development of all mines in the country, Yura Ivanyan, head of an Investigative Committee's department in charge of investigating corruption, property and cyber crimes, told a news conference today called to provide additional information on the controversial Amulsar gold project. Ivanyan said the responsibility for safe development of a mine is always with the developing company.
'Our legislation has enough leverage to control the natural operation of the mine," he said. Ivanyan said if a company violates the law, law enforcement agencies have the right to suspend the development of the mine and revoke the company's license.
Asked why the government chose a Lebanese Earth link & Advanced Resources Development (ELARD) company to conduct the environmental impact assessment of the Amulsar gold mine Ivanyan said the approach to choosing a company was very strict. Given the unprecedented importance of the issue, the tender committee decided to give preference to an organization that would not have a conflict of interest, and which had not been engaged in any activities in Armenia before. He said the audit was conducted by ELARD together with American company TRC.
He said the experts were provided with all necessary documents and studies, conducted earlier by government agencies and scientific organizations, which were quickly translated to English.
The development of the Amulsar project was halted in 2018 June after environmental groups and local residents set up illegal blockades preventing access to the mine. They argue that the project would pollute the Jermuk mineral water springs and Armenia's largest Lake Sevan. Police have failed to remove the protestors.
In July 2018, bowing to the pressure of Lydian Armenia and environmental activists Armenia’s Investigative Committee launched an inquiry to examine claims of willful concealment of environmental pollution data regarding the mine. The Lebanese consulting firm ELARD was contracted as part of this investigation to review the results of the previous two environmental assessment studies on the mining site.
On August 15 the Toronto-based Lydian International Limited announced that the Special Investigative Committee of Armenia (ICA) released the ELARD report on the environmental audit.
In a statement, Lydian quoted Hayk Grigoryan, the head of ICA, as saying that the investigative body had analyzed the information and findings provided by the international audit report and found there were no grounds for criminal prosecution and continuation of criminal proceedings against the company.
The audit focused on the “wilful concealing of information about pollution of the environment by officials related to the exploitation of the Amulsar gold mine” and was started in March this year.
Lydian Armenia was founded in 2005, and all 100% shares in it are owned by Lydian International. The Amulsar mine program is the first project of the company in Armenia. The Amulsar gold deposit is the second largest deposit in Armenia in terms of gold reserves and is said to contain about 31 million tons of ore and 40 tons of pure gold.
Armenian local environmentalists and residents of nearby villagers have been protesting against the development of the mine for years, claiming that the mining activities would endanger the region’s water resources and the local population’s health. . –0-