EcoLur
'Teghout' CJSC started redundancies in their company, which is very hard for Shnogh villagers, as Shnogh Community Head Hovhannes Sahakyan told EcoLur.
About Problem with Working Places
"Working places is a particularly important issue for us, which causes most concerns – redundancies at 'Teghout' CJSC. Out of around 1300 people working there 253 are Shnogh villagers. The construction works have been accomplished and they have made around 50 people redundant. I'm more concerned with the fact that people from other areas continue working, meanwhile local residents with the same qualifications are made redundant... The company has taken the land areas of over 340 families for their project (note by EcoLur – the land areas were taken under the concept 'Public Eminent Domain', and only a part of them was acquired with the consent of land owners.) Each family has 3 workers, on average. If to multiple this number by the number of families, it turns out that around 1300 residents having given away their land areas, should be employed. But those already employed are made redundant,' the community head said.
Shnogh River Pollution Problem
'Another problem is the disastrous state of Shnogh River. Directly under the tailing dump, below the dumps, there is an artificial drainage basin designed for a cloased cycle. Nevertheless, on individual days, the situation there is disastrous, especially at nights, when tails are dumped into the river. In the water you can clearly see the traces of these particles (tails). We have regions in the village, where these waters are dumped and villagers can't even go home. They use this water to irrigate trees and they get dry. The company tells us they will install cleaning pools, but two years have passed and there are no swimming pools yet.'
Problems with Lalvar Forest Felling
"According to the governmental resolution, 'Teghout' CJSC is obliged to carry out reforestation in the territories twice as large as the felled down ones giving priority to Shnogh and Teghout Villages. Nevertheless, we don't have such land areas for the reforestation, as mainly privately-owned land areas have been left. There are some land areas in the Alpian zone, but this is where the cattle pasture. As an exception, we asked them to replace this program with the program on planting orchards and they have already planted 23 ha. Forest felling has been carried out by 'Ramik' LLC. The felled down timber is given to 'ArmForest', which, in its turn, sells it. The territory is fenced and the felled down timber is accumulated there in ge amounts: only small branches are left, which the residents aren't allowed to use. When small branches make up hune amounts, they are buried with bulldozers, and people are left without any wood. It's a real absurd: eventually, whether this timber has no worth?
Open Mine Impact on Air
According to Sahakyan, the community doesn't receive any data on air monitoring from 'Teghout' CJSC: "I don't have any official data on air pollution. But people living near the mine that the dust reside on their clothes, washed linen, which can be clearly be seen. I don't know what standards are used here and what is permitted,' Hovhannes Sahakyan said.
July 20, 2016 at 17:57