EcoLur
The Chairman of Greens Union in Armenia Hakob Sanasaryan thinks that the large reserves of artesian waters located under the cyanide tailing dump in Ararat pose huge hazard. The cyanide tailing dump belongs to GeoProMining Company, which owns a gold recovery factory in Ararat and extracts gold in Sotq. The company furnished the factory and declared it introduced new “Albion” technology which enables to extract more cold from concentrate and to minimize harmful impact on environment.
Hakob Sanasaryan doesn’t consider the arguments brought by GeoProMining Company convincing and doesn’t think the new technology to be safe and zero-discharge. GeoProMining Company increased its mining by about 2.5 times, which is done at the expense of ore volume with the use of cyanide technologies. The company specialists convince public their new gold extraction method, “Albion”, is safe and has no harmful emissions. But it’s not like that. “More gold is extracted, while all heavy metals remain in wastes,” said Hakob Sanasaryan. “People think that a tailing dump (dried out) is just dust and sand. In fact, a tailing dump is a whole range of heavy metals not taking into consideration cyanides. There is an artesian basin under Ararat tailing dump. As the tailing dump has no insulation barrier, metals gradually penetrate into the depth and a huge territory is at stake of contamination.”
March 28, 2012 at 13:51