EcoLur
The Armenian Government granted benefits to “Ov-Khach” Company which constructed and ran into service “Jotnaghbyur-Garni” gravity water canal, which supplies water to the settlements in Garni, Geghard, Goght, Hatsavan, Geghadir and Voghjaberd, Kotayk Region. The benefits are as follows: VAT payments in the amount of more than 300 million AMD are prolonged till 1st September 2010 taking into consideration that the company intends to construct 5 automatically-controlled small hydropower plants along the canal. Meanwhile the Government highly assessed the company’s operation for investments in irrigation.
For our part, we would like to mention the cascade of small hydropower plants along the whole length of the canal can damage the irrigation, as the rivers haven’t been certified in Armenia so far, and nobody can substantiate the damage caused to the river basin ecosystem with documents, where water can lack for irrigation of those territories where water is taken by small HPPs. Moreover, the extent of generated electricity at small HPPS is very high in Armenia, twice as much as, for example, in Europe. That is, Europe thinks these are already large HPPs which require completely other environmental impact assessment, while we think they are small HPPs.
August 17, 2011 at 12:29