EcoLur
The State Environmental Inspection of Nature Protection Ministry has issued an antedated positive opinion to Jermuk – 1 SHHP, when the construction was at full speed and Arpa riverbed has already been changed. “Jermuk Turboshin” LLC launched this construction in the spring of 2012, while the Nature Protection Ministry held public hearings on 20 August 2012, where the participants stated that the hearings were conducted with the violations and opposed to the project. Nevertheless, the Ministry issued its positive opinion to the project after 10 days, on 31 August 2012, without conducting the second and third hearings. “ArmForest” SNCO representative’s opinion wasn’t taken into consideration either, though he was not even aware that the SHHP occupies the territory of the forest fund. As the public representatives found out the easement for providing the territory of the construction was concluded only with Jermuk Municipality, but ArmForest has been neglected. ArmForest didn’t stand upon its rights, though it replied to Jermuk-based activist Macedon Aleksanyan’s letter, which says that the SHHP pipes occupy the territory of the forestry of Vayots Dzor. The project mentions the number of the trees to be felled down under the project makes up from 200 to 500. The NGOs don’t agree with this assessment, all the parameters show the number of the trees should have been much more taking into consideration the slope of the forest territory. It’s surprising how the state bodies not only didn’t take into account the existing violations, but also, as a matter of fact, ignored the public alarm signals, which presented convincing proof that the process of issuing permitting documents for “Jermuk-1” SHHP project and the implementation process of the project is implemented with gross violations. Moreover, if ArmForest was excluded from this process and the felled trees are considered as illegal. A question remains: whether “ArmForest” SNCO and the State Environmental Inspection of Nature Protection Ministry will perform their obligation and will estimate the amount of the damage caused by illegal felling from 200 to 500 tree and who will pay this fine?
Photo by Makedon Aleqsanyan
May 17, 2013 at 15:58