Today, on June 8, RA Environment Ministry circulated a draft of amendments to the 2 laws regarding Lake Sevan on the website www.e-draft.am, the adoption of which will exclude the implementation of additional water intake from Lake Sevan. EcoLur welcomes this initiative and calls on RA National Assembly to show the political will to accept these legislative changes. Protection of Lake Sevan is one of the strategic priorities of the Republic of Armenia. Today, Lake Sevan is in a highly unstable ecological state and has taken the path of swamping.
Many problems of the lake contributed to this, including additional water intakes. According to the law, a maximum of 170 million cubic meters of water can be taken for irrigation from Lake Sevan. Since 2008, additional water intake has been carried out from Sevan 6 times. As a result, the lake has recorded a negative balance for three years in a row and has approached the 2016 year-end index. This means that during the 7 years, sufficient efforts were not made to raise the level of the lake, which are provided by the law, to solve the problem of irrigation of the lands of Ararat and Armavir Regions.
The reason for the catastrophic scarcity of water in the Ararat artesian basin is that water resources are overexploited. 1.6 billion are used instead of 1.1 billion cubic meters, and fish farms use the largest portion. The overexploitation of water has already led to the violation of the water balance, the normal state of groundwater has been threatened, and serious socio-economic problems have been created for the population.
This year, the officials also announce the need to take additional water from Lake Sevan, which is unacceptable, because it will lead to a severe deterioration of the ecological condition of the lake, as well as violate the requirements of RA legislation. (RA Law "ON APPROVAL OF THE ANNUAL AND COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAMS FOR THE RECOVERY, PRESERVATION, REPRODUCTION AND USE OF THE SEVANA LAKE ECOSYSTEM", 5 EXPECTED RESULTS).
Sacrificing Lake Sevan to oligarchs of fish farms is unacceptable for us. The application of the Water Committee regarding additional discharges from Sevan should be rejected and the illegally issued water permits for those fish farms, which have deprived Ararat valley, which is a source of bread for us, of water for many years, should be cancelled.
We call on the RA National Assembly and the government to protect Lake Sevan and abandon the intention to carry out additional water intake.
June 08, 2023 at 11:57