Artur Hovhannisyan, the "Azg"
“Armenian Women for Health and Healthy Environment” NGO who first raised the problem of pesticide burial in Nubarashen has recently received the letter of response of RA Health Minister Harutyun Kushkyan № 4135/10. The letter tells about the examination the ministry conducted in connection with the situation in the waste burial ground:
"...The Health Ministry conducted long-lasting observations of environmental objects (soil, water and atmosphere) and plants growing in settlements aimed at detecting and assessing danger for public health through laboratory analyses. Atmosphere and drinking water were examined, as well as samples were taken from milk and cheese made from the milk of cattle pasturing near the cottage houses, eggs, potatoes, carrot, parsley, apples, vineyard leaves, cherries, hazelnuts, beet tops. The examination results are as follows: no MPC detected. At the same time pesticides turned out to have percolated into the sewer stream in insignificant amounts because of landslips and other factors (with rain water) and into the soil in some land areas near the waste burial ground.”
As we found out from the Head of Hygienic and Antiepidemic Inspection of RA Health Ministry on 21 June maximum permissible concentration (MPC) was exceeded by nearly twice in the territories adjacent to the aforementioned burial, as well as in the pit filled with water and surrounding soil. The pilot investigations conducted by Center for Ecological Noosphere Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia show the streamlet water formed under the burial contain p, p՛- DDT isomer that exceeds MPC by 4,04 times. Another more dangerous pesticide (DDE-isomer) was found in the sample taken from one of the sites which exceeded the MPC by 11.64 times.
June 25, 2010