EcoLur
Kurtan community residents, Lori Region, are claiming that the Gargar River has dried out because of the SHPP operating in the community area, the fish has disappeared and you can find only sewage in the river. “We used to use the river water: no everything has disappeared…no water, no fish, only sewage left,” Kurtan Villagers told EcoLur in their interview. According to them, the SHPP takes all the water of the river in the water intake section not leaving any environmental flow and completely depriving the river of the water. “After the dam 30% of the water must be left in the water for the fish to live and the fauna to survive. They leave 0% water in the river. The sewage is discharged into the river, animals drink it, so various diseases get spread. Already 3-4 animals have died,” Kurtan Community resident said and added that none of them has received any compensation for the dead cattle. “Environment is in poor state: our children used to swim here. Nothing has left,” another villager added.
It should be mentioned that fish species in the Gargar river are the brown trout, the South Caucasus sprilin and the Kura barbell.
According to the villagers, the SHPP administration not only doesn’t carry out the required environmental measures, but also the social programs they promised to do, “They promised to provide free-of-charge electricity to the school and kindergarten and give discounts to war participants, but nothing like that happened.”
The residents said that the community doesn’t use the river for the irrigation purposes, as there is no irrigation system. “Our irrigation system is destroyed: whatever left has been stolen. In fact, our villagers are confused, as our land areas turn into infertile ones,” Kurtan resident said.
Kurtan Community Head Mher Gevorgyan told EcoLur, they used to have problems with the SHPP in the community, the water let out into the river was little, but now there are no complaints.
What about the fish, the community head said, “In general, the fish fauna has reduced, but only the SHPP shouldn’t be blamed for it. It’s true there is fewer fish in the section where the pipeline is laid, but the reduction of the fish reserves is more due to nature deterioration – low precipitation and decrease in river level, as well as the factor of fishing.” What about the sewage the community head mentioned that the community doesn’t have a cleaning station and can’t afford it.
What about irrigation, Mher Gevorgyan said, “After the collapse of the USSR we don’t have any irrigation system. The pipes have remained under the land, I watch them not to be stolen. I tried to recover the irrigation system through different programs, but I can’t. If we had an irrigation system, we would get twice as much income from our land areas, but currently we have arid land areas.”
 |
 |
 |
 |
The material was developed in the frames of “Supporting reforms in the sector of small hydro power plants through enabling a dialogue between civil society and the Ministry of Nature Protection for sustainable use of river ecosystems” supported by UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme".
January 22, 2016 at 17:41