Siranuysh Gevorgyan, ArmeniaNow
Armenian environmentalists constantly voice their concerns over Lake Sevan bogging up; in recent years the level of the lake has been raising, and now reaches 1,901 meters, as a result of which hundreds of legal and illegal constructions, artificial forests around Lake Sevan, highways and even gas pipelines are under water.
The green mass now submerged does not decay rapidly, and according to environmentalist Karine Danielyan, the lake may not manage to overcome the danger of pollution and bogging up through self-cleaning.
According to the RA Law ‘On Lake Sevan’ adopted in 2001, the lake level was supposed to rise by six meters (becoming 1,903.5 meters) before 2030, about 20 centimeters annually. But since 2005, the speed of the lake level rise has been higher than it was planned, averagely 37 centimeters annually. This year Sevan was raised by about 60 centimeters. The rise of the lake level was possible thanks to the abrupt limitation of water flow from Lake Sevan. The Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia states that if the current speed of the lake level’s rise is kept, it would be possible to reach the 1,903.5 meters index in 2020.
In 2005-2008, the Government of Armenia assigned funds to clean about 100 hectares of lakeside territory annually. In 2009, when President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had a tour in Sevan, he ordered to assign funds for cleaning about 600 hectares (annually), understanding that 100 hectares is too small.
On Thursday, the Government of Armenia made a decision to assign 30 million drams (about \\\\\\$ 82,800) to the Ministry of Nature Protection to buy and bring to Armenia a special excavator of Finnish production, which can work in territories covered with water and forming bogs, as well as to organize Lake Sevan cleaning works more productively.
“During previous years, the quality and volume of those works (Lake Sevan cleaning works) were poor, because the companies which won in the competitions [for implementing the lake cleaning works], did not have facilities with high level of productivity, which are designed for functioning in underwater wooded territories, and cleaning them of bushes,” the government statement says.
July 17, 2010