Naira Bulghadaryan, ArmeniaNow Vanadzor reporter
Contamination of the Pambak river no longer surprises residents of Vanadzor who live on the banks of the water and see its ugly impact on the city.
But last week when the water turned red, even scientists were shocked.
“A red liquid would pour into the river from the sewage pipe (belonging to the Lori-Jrmughkoyughi water and Sewage Company),” Mariam Yepremyan, senior specialist at the Lori province laboratory of the nature protection agency Lori department says. She identified the color by a sample exposed to chemical examination in the laboratory.
The contamination was traced to businessman Seyran Gharibyan who had spilled textile dye from a 10-kilo barrel. The barrel had apparently been damaged in transit to a truck and its contents were poured into a sewage drain.
Yepremyan says the results showed the index of sewage water has not been changed drastically because of the coloring, also, there was no danger to health.
Gharibyan, who spilled the color into the sewage water, has not been fined as prescribed by the Water Code of the Republic of Armenia as compensation.
Gharibyan was instead fined by the water and sewage company for technical damage to the sewage pipelines in 130,000 drams (about \\$ 430). The nature protection agency has admonished Gharibyan to not create such pollution in the future.
The local branch of the nature protection agency has concluded there was no damage to the flora and the fauna, therefore Ghukasyan has not been fined.
The agency mentions the basin of the river Debed to which Pambak is part, is in a disastrous condition because of contamination with household rubbish.
“The rubbish covers not only the whole area of the river but also the water,” Lablajyan, acting head of the Lori province department of nature protection agency of the Republic of Armenia complains. Household rubbish of the village is dumped directly in the river; the river is also contaminated by “outhouse” toilets, which according to Lablajyan are being demolished.
He says the works aimed at increasing environmental awareness of the population that have been organized by local non-governmental organizations in the recent years are a priority.
Perch Bojukyan, head of the “Orhus” environmental protection center in Vanadzor believes Debed will continuously be contaminated unless and until the population develops an environmental state of mind.
“On the other side there is need to introduce a system of refuse management. Preventing people from spilling rubbish into rivers will be possible when the authorities solve the problem of coordinated waste removal,” says Bojukyan.
Debed basin is also contaminated by the sewage water from the nearby settlements.
None of the sewage cleaning stations in the towns of the Lori province work fully with only the Vanadzor station operating partially; providing purely mechanical cleaning of the sewage, its biological and chemical cleaning stages are omitted due to exhaustion of equipment that was disassembled and stolen with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The means of the credit and grant by the German Restoration Loan Bank (KwF) in about 10 million Euros (\$ 13,398,000) to the Lori-Jrmughkoyughi are supposed also for the repair of the Vanadzor cleaning station in 2012-2014.
A survey by the Center for Monitoring of Influence on the Environment of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of the Republic of Armenia as of October has shown nitrite ion exceeds the permissible level for 1.3-4.3 times, and the ammonium ion – for 1.2-1.9 times. This excess is conditioned by the abundance of sewage waters in the rivers. (there is no potential damage to health when the permissible level is exceeded for that much)
Neither do the industrial enterprises in Armenia possess cleaning stations, with the exception of leather manufacturing plant. (according to study by “For Sustainable Water Environment” NGO)
“By spilling waste into the rivers they damage the flora and the fauna just in the place they get into the river, and then they also contaminate the river system by either settling in the bed of the river or by flowing,” says hydrologist and the head of the For Sustainable Water Environment NGO Arevik Hovsepyan.
Doctor of chemistry Varduhi Grigoryan calls the situation disastrous both in the basin of Debed and also the rest of the river basins in Armenia.
“The contamination in our urbanized areas is much more affecting, which is conditioned with both household rubbish and sewage water,” says Grigoryan.
December 17, 2008