EcoLur
Kapan is trapped: the town is surrounded with objects having different hazard extents. First of all, these are dumps of Kapan Combine, secondly, Geghanush tailing dump and thirdly, Artsvanik tailing dump, which belongs to Zangezour Copper and Molybdenum Combine and is located next to Kapan. (See photos.) It already stores 150 million cubic meters of dumps. On Kapan-Kajaran highway you can find two more closed tailing dumps belonging to Zangezour Combine. The Voghji River is running through Kapan Town where waters mixed with dumps and tails flow into this river. You can find a huge variety of heavy metals and toxic elements in all the above mentioned objects, which are buried in the earth, transferred with water, accumulate with dust from dumps and get into human organism together with food and water. They cause genetic mutations, affect immune and reproductive systems and bone tissues.
Drilling works for uranium reserves prospecting have already been launched in a distance of several kilometers from Kapan. Polymetallic mines which contain gold and silver also contain radionuclides and have high-level radiation.
January 21, 2011