After SHPP Construction Only Sewage to Be Left in the River Meghri, Resident of Lehvaz

EcoLur

On November 13, 2014, in Lehvaz municipality in Syunik region, public discussions took place on the application of the preliminary assessment of "Meghri-1" SHPP construction presented by "Green Power" LLC.  

A resident of Lehvaz community asked a question, "What will a Lehvaz villager benefit from that construction? Do you expect us to give our agreement?"

Khachatur Avetisyan, manager of "Green Power" LLC said, "The main employers will be the residents of the community. We have discussed with the governor of the community that we want to construct a playground for the community and our work will be continued".  

"Creating a playground or doing a charity is a problem of several years, but people have been living here for years", responded the resident. 

Inga Zarafyan, "EcoLur" Informational NGO president, stated, "You should introduce all the environmental risks for us to understand what to discuss". "The pipeline will be installed by the existing irrigation system. That is, there will be no deforestation, no bushes will be cut, it will have no influence on environment", answered Edvard Mkrtchyan, chief engineer of projecting company "Gidepinvest" LLC.   

Ecolur asked what influence the Small HPP will have on the ecosystem of the river Meghri. Edvard Mkrtchyan said that it would have no negative influence, as all the RA norms would be followed. In response to Ecolur's question whether the river has a sanitary function for the people, the residents answered, "All the sewage of the upper villages fall into the river, and only the sewage will be left in the river".   

Edvard Mkrtchyan stated that the SHPP will work for 2 months per year during overflowing and in the rest months it will work with small power.  

Let's state that in the application of the preliminary assessment of "Meghri-1" SHPP construction presented to the RA Ministry of Nature Protection it is mentioned that because of repair works the SHPP will be exploited for 11 months or 330 days, and nothing is mentioned about the fact that it will work for only 2 months with full power during overflowing. It's also mentioned in the application that the SHPP will annually produce 10.56 million kWh of electricity which will provide net sale of 214.2 million AMD per year.  

The preliminary calculated investment money for "Meghri-1" SHPP construction is 1022.86 million AMD not including VAT. The external funding is 716 million AMD or 70%. It's expected that "Meghri-1" SHPP will be constructed and exploited from 2014 to 2021. 
The exploitation will start since September, 2016. 

The material was  developed in the frames of “Supporting reforms in the sector of small hydro power plants through enabling a dialogue between civil society  and the Ministry  of Nature Protection for sustainable use of river ecosystems” supported by UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme".

November 14, 2014 at 16:47