EcoLur
The Voghji River is regarded as one of the most polluted rivers in Armenia, particularly in those sections where tributaries flowing into the drainage basin of the Voghji affect on it. First of all, this is the Norashenik River which is under strong pressure of the mining industry. Many objects of mining industry are located in the territory where the river passes through the gorge such as dumps, waste rocks developed by Shahumyan Mine, pits and shafts, while the river washes away their contents. The breakdown emissions of the biggest dumping tail in Armenia, the Artsvanik, are also observed.
Below are given the analysis data submitted by Seyran Minasyan, the Deputy Director of Environmental Impact Monitoring Center of the Ministry of Nature Protection of RA who considered the Voghji River pollution dynamics on toxic elements and chemical compounds. The author’s text and explanations are complemented by graphs where each table displays data one each element separately.
“The Voghji River monitoring was conducted at five observation sites: site N91 is 1,7 km above from Kajaran Town, N92 - 1,* km below Kajaran Town, N93 is 0,8 km above Kapan Town, N94-1 is next to the airfield of Kapаn Town, N94 is near the border.
The Norashenik River is one of the main tributaries of the Voghji River. Observation site N96 is located near the estuary to find out the river involvement in the Voghji river pollution.
Pollution dynamics is traced back under 20 indicators. All the indicators are evident o have impact both on geochemical background and human factor.
The indicators are divided into 5 impact groups. The first group includes zinc, cadmium, manganese, copper and phosphate ions. Concentration stepwise increase by 10-60% is observed in this group within the whole flow of the Voghji River. Meanwhile copper concentration in the samples taken from the Norashenik is 13 times less than in the samples taken in the airport, but the same as in the river section below Kajaran. This is conditioned by impact of municipal sewers and eroded soil. Phosphate ion impact is due to agriculture.
The second group includes lead, chromium chemical oxygen demand indicator, dissolved oxygen, i.e. those indicators that have almost identical significances both in the estuary and in the river head. This means that impact on these indicators mainly is of background nature consistent to the geochemical composition of rocks included. Meanwhile the indicator on dissolved oxygen didn’t change much coming to show that being a typical mountainous river the Voghji manages to dissolve municipal sewer.
The third group includes ammonium, nitrite ions and nitrites and biological oxygen demand indicator. This indicator group is characteristic if increase in indicators by 2,7-7,8 times with the river stream. Maximum increase is observed in the Voghji section below Kajaran which is conditioned by unclean communal sewer.
The fourth group includes arsenic, suspension particles and electroconductivity. These indicators have changes consistent to each other. The impact of the Norashenik River is observed here.
The fifth group includes antimony, vanadium and molybdenum. Their concentration is significantly increased in the below section of the Norashenik River. Changing concentrations of antimony and molybdenum in the Voghji River, site 94, are conditioned by the impact of the Norashenik tributary polluted with these elements. The presence of suspension particles and increase in arsenic concentration are also observed in the Norashenik.
See Table on pollution level with abovementioned heavy metals and compounds in the Armenian version.
April 08, 2010