EcoLur
At present Nature Protection Ministry is considering the construction project of a cyanic plant in Meghradzor, which may have an extremely negative influence on the resort zone in Meghradzor-Hanqavan.
The website of Nature Protection Ministry published documents concerning environmental impact in its “Environmental Expertise” section (http://www.mnp.am/?p=315). Nevertheless, the real risks are not reflected in documents. As substantiation, we bring an extract from the article by Sh. Amiryan, A. Karapetyan entitled “Mineralogical-geochemical characteristics of Meghradzor gold mine ores”, Bulletin of Academy of Sciences of Armenian SSR, XVII, N2, 1964. “...The content of gold was established in ores in spectral manner from 0.03% to 0.1 %, silver – from 0.1% to 0.3%, mercury – 0.01%, arsenic – over 10%. Tellurides Au, As, Bi, Pb present the largest interest in ores of polymetallic stage…”).
This means that the ore in Meghradzir mine contains compounds of elements posing the highest toxicity for environment and people’s health - mercury, arsenic, bismuth and lead. These compounds are emitted into surface in the form of dust and crushed ore remainders, after concentrate saturated with gold and silver is sent to gold extracting plant in Ararat Town. Now Meghradzor Gold Company has decided to move cyanic technologies to Meghradzor directly, thus many times increasing risks of polluting the drainage basin of the Marmarik River and land areas of agricultural significance, where so-called barren rock is dumped, which contain heavy and toxic elements.
According to Article 5 (1) of RA Law “On Environmental Impact Expert Assessment”, expertise shall at least include forecasting, description and assessment of probable direct and indirect impact of planned activities:
- а) for climatic conditions, flora and fauna, separate elements of ecosystem, their interrelations and stability, specially protected areas, landscapes, geomorphological facilities, air, surface and underground waters, soil and mines:
- b) for people’s health and welfare;
- c) for environment of settlements;
- d) for use of natural resources;
- e) for monuments of history and culture;
In accordance with the provisions of this law, we ask the experts of Nature Protection Ministry to express their opinion on point a), experts of Health Ministry- on point b), experts of Agriculture Ministry – on point a) in regard with the impact of agricultural land areas, experts of Culture Ministry – on point е).
January 10, 2013 at 15:13