EcoLur
According to materials ArmeniaNow, panorama.am, Noyan Tapan, ArmInfo
On 26 January Vladimir Movsisyan, Chairman of the Committee on Lake Sevan Issues at the President, summed up the results of 1-year operation.
Lake Sevan level will reach 1903,5 m by 2031. Level increase will be conducted gradually. The proposed measures will significantly reduce consequences that will lake level increase have on households in different spheres. First of all, this refers to the constructions to be flooded. The total number of constructions is 1697, out of which 481 constructions have legal status, while 1216 ones are illegal. 910 constructions out of 1216 appeared to be movable.
The figure of forest-covered area to be flooded is specified, 2789 ha, while its cleaning will require 1 billion 200 million AMD.
15 km of the highway will also be left under the water, and 4,3 billion AMD (11,4 million USD) will be needed to build a new section of the highway.
The whitefish reserves have reduced by 50 times.
Georg Khachaturyan, ArmeniaNow
Netting all kinds of fish in Lake Sevan will be banned in the next 3-4 years in a bid to preserve species and maintain the ecology of the lake, said Vladimir Movsisyan, head of the president-affiliated commission on Lake Sevan problems, at a press conference Tuesday.
The chief problem of Lake Sevan, the largest body of fresh water in Armenia, was the sharp reduction of the water level, which began to lower in 1950 because of the excessive water drainage for energy needs and irrigation purposes. The lowering of the water level in the lake led to the disappearance of many fish species, swamping of near-shore areas with a real prospect of an environmental disaster. In the 1980s the drainage of water was considerably reduced and a 48-kilometer tunnel Arpa-Sevan was built to redirect some water from the river Arpa into Lake Sevan. Nevertheless, the current level of water in the lake is lower than its original one by 11 meters (the original level of the lake was 2,000 meters above sea.)
At the press conference Movsisyan summed up the results of the commission’s activities in 2009 (the commission was set up in late 2008). The commission head reported that in 2009 Lake Sevan’s water level rose by 38 centimeters and reached the level of 1,899 meters. The commission is looking to achieve the rise in the lake’s water level to 1,903 by 2013, i.e. seeing the water rise by 20 centimeters a year.
According to Movsisyan, a total of 1,697 buildings and structures located along the lakeshore will be submerged by the rising water if the rise targets are met. Only 481 of these buildings are legally authorized constructions and their owners will receive compensation. The construction of the rest of the buildings was not licensed and they will be pulled down with no compensation paid.
Besides, said Movsisyan, a 15-kilometer section of a highway passing by the lake will also be submerged by the rising water. A total of 4.3 billion drams (\\\\\\$ 11.4 million) are expected to be allocated for building that section of the highway in another place.
According to the commission head, a total of 600 hectares of lakeside forests were cleaned in 2009 and 307,000 endemic trout fries were let into the lake for water purification purposes.
ArmInfo
As of January 1 2010 the level of Lake Sevan reached 1,899m 23cm. Such level was registered in 1965, Vladimir Movsisyan, Commission for Lake Sevan, said at De Facto debate club on Tuesday.
"We have reached and even exceeded the level registered 45 years ago by 5 cm: It is mostly thanks to the tunnel Arpa-Sevan that we reached such level, he said. After repair of the given section (814 million drams), 209 million cu m of water poured into Sevan over 8 months of 2009 versus 192 million cu b over 12 months of 2008. Repair of another 3km 360 m section of Arpa-Sevan tunnel will be completed within the coming 5 years. The level of Sevan is supposed to rise 20-21cm in average yearly. So the lake will reach 1903.5 m above sea level in 2031. As a result, 15 km of roads will be flooded. Only part of these roads will be reconstructed and 4.3 billion drams have been allocated for this purpose. Last year Sevan- Gavar-Martuni highway of 2.1km was repaired (376 million drams). 11 km of water pipes and 4 irrigation systems will be flooded, as well as 19 km of gas pipeline (their reconstruction will take 1.8 billion drams), 18 km power lines (reconstruction will cost 1.6 bln drams). Sevan will flood also 2789 ha of forests and cleaning will require 1.2 billion drams. Last year 600 ha of woods were cleaned which took the country 257 million drams. Movsisyan said that the ministry has relevant equipment for cleaning under water and the issue is currently under discussion.
January 28, 2010