EcoLur
The Armenian Environmental Front (AEF) initiative has taken water samples from the area of Tandzut derelict mine and adjacent area water and submitted for lab analyses. As it turned out, the heavy metals in the water exceeded the ecological standards by multiple times. “Upon out order, the concentration of 6 out of 7 metals dissolved in the lab exceeded the ecological standards dozens, hundreds and even thousand times.”
The first sample taken from the very area of the derelict mine, the concentration of arsenic exceeded 183 times, selenium – 25, tin – 3.6, iron – 1255, copper – 1488 and zinc – 5.5 times. Only the concentration of lead was within the standards.
In the case of the second sample, which was taken 2.5 km down the mine area, before the getting mixed with the water of the Tandzut River, the concentration of arsenic exceeded 11.4 times, lead – 36 times, selenium – 3.3, tin – 3.6, iron – 1879, copper – 122 and zinc – 2.6 times, which means that contamination in large volumes exists in a distance of at least 2.5 km from the contamination source,” their press release says.
“Acid mine drainage continues till now,” the initiative mentions that the acid mine drainage poses a serious threat, which is also true for Amulsar sulphide gold mine, which is going to be mined, the rocks of which have a huge potential acid formation and contain huge amount of heavy, hazardous and radioactive metals. The AEF is beating an alarm signal that Amulsar mining will cause disastrous contamination of Jermuk mineral water and freshwater and Lake Sevan.
The AEF is proposing RA Nature Protection Ministry to carry out in-detailed examination of acid mine drainage of derelict Kavart and Tandzout mines at the expense of Environmental Preservation Fund of RA Nature Protection Ministry, as well as design, installation and further service of wastewater cleaning station, complete cleaning and neutralization of water and soil contaminated because of acid mine drainage. “Only after performing these works and receiving positive result to the public, the Armenian Government has a moral right to speak about the operation of new mines,” the AEF press release says.
October 13, 2017 at 17:25