EcoLur
The Armenian Government decided to make a law “Investment Program for Processing Industrial Dumps Accumulated and Accumulating Because of Activities of “Zangezour Copper and Molybdenum Combine” CJSC and accumulated and accumulating in Voghji, Pkhroun and Artsvanik tailing dumps” implemented by “Alyotig” LLC. In this regard, the executive has developed and submitted a bill to the National Assembly, which will regulate the relations related with the implementation of this investment program.
Under the official information, annually 18-20 million tons are added to around 300 million tons available in the ZCMC tailing dumps. “Alyotig” LLC plans to construct a processing plant with annual capacity of 12.5 million tons to process and refine currently non-used dumps. It’s planned to construct a composite substance plant, which will use the medley of the tailing dump as raw material. In the first stage around 240 million USD will be invested, while the second stage will involve 2019-2015, when the plant production capacity will be made annually up to 25 million tons.
In the first stage around 1000 permanent and 500 temporary job places will be opened. Pkhrout and Voghji tailing dumps will are reclaimed, while Artsvanik tailing dump is still in operation.
According to Article 6 of the bill, the content of Artsvanik tailing dump will be used by “Alyotig” LLC after reclaiming the tailing dump or stopping its operation. Thus, we can infer that the operational life of Artsvanik tailing dump will be short. On the other hand, a question arises where ZCMC will dump its industrial wastes, if Artsvanik tailing dump stops operating?
It says the program will solve environment problem. Nevertheless, the master plan in the bill, which will be used to implement the program, misses any clause on implementing environmental measures, it just says that the master plan will contain information on the rules and standards laid down for the protection of environment.
The bill lays down that the relevant communities of Syunik Region will sell their land areas at cadastral value to the project implementer, where the construction of processing plant is planned.
May 13, 2015 at 16:40