RA Environmental and Soil Inspection
The announcement of Armenian Copper Program" CJSC on the closedown of Alaverdi Copper Smelting Plant says that one of the reasons for the closedown of the plant is the outcomes of the inspection carried out by RA Environmental and Mining Inspection.
The official announcement of the company, particularly, outlines two factors related to the operations of the Inspection Body – the size of the fine imposed and the impossibility to perform the instructions on reducing the emissions in two months' term.
1) It should be mentioned that the inspection has been carried out in the frames of annual planned inspections. As a result of the violations detected in the course of the inspection, an administrative fine of 300,000 AMD has been imposed and damage caused to the environment in the amount of 378 million AMD, which has been estimated through the calculation formulae established with the governmental resolutions.
2) In the course of the inspection from 13 to 23 August, it was found out that from 2012 to 2017 the company had to gradually increase the emission volumes of the main components through performing the activities prescribed in its permit. For example, the amount of emitted sulfur dioxide should have been decreased by introducing a gas cleaning system by 50% by 1 October 2016 and by 90% by 1 October 2017.
The company has undertaken all these obligations. Nevertheless, the necessary actions haven't been performed or they have been extremely ineffective, as a result, the conditions laid down in the permit haven't been fulfilled even to a small extent. We are urging the company not to attribute to the governmental bodies and, particularly, Inspection body, the results of their own inactivity having led to the closedown of the plant, otherwise, we will initiate another public discussion with more items on the agenda.
All the actions of the inspection are conditioned with its obligations and have been performed with the mechanisms land down with the legislation. The company hasn't fulfilled the obligations of reducing the emissions it has undertaken and hasn't submitted any proposal on making the emission volume to permissible limits. The Inspection Body hasn't demanded from the company to stop the operation of the copper smelting plant, but the demanded to operate in compliance with the permit conditions. We don't know whether the company has submitted a claim to the competent body to receive a new permit with new conditions.
October 30, 2018 at 13:30