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Delayed-Action Mine May Be Laid In Sevan, Ecologists State

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  • Delayed-Action Mine May Be Laid In Sevan, Ecologists State

    DELAYED-ACTION MINE MAY BE LAID IN SEVAN, ECOLOGISTS STATE

    YEREVAN, APRIL 6, NOYAN TAPAN. A delayed-action mine - this is how
    the environmental community has defined the project of transferring
    Ararat gold-mining enterprise to the area of Sevan basin. The Canadian
    company Sterlight Gold LTD intends to implement the project through
    its Armenian subsidiary. The company held on April 5 public hearings
    on the issue. According to chairman of the Union of Greens of Armenia
    Hakob Sanasarian, the hearings "should have been stopped at the very
    beginning" since the project contradicts most of the environmemtal
    laws, first of all, the Law on Lake Sevan. For example, it is laid
    out in the law that ore processing activities are forbidden in the
    catchment basin of Lake Sevan, whereas the the factory carries out
    gold ore processing and dressing activities with the use of such
    environmentally dangerous substances as cyanides. The tranfer of
    the factory is conditioned by the bad state of the railway from
    the mine in Sotk to the Ararat factory, as a result of which ore
    transportation is quite costly. The company claims that in case of
    such a transfer and the consequent profits it will operate the mine
    for about 10 years, creating jobs and promoting the development of the
    local community. The company's assuarances that it will take all the
    necessary measures for environmemtal protection did not meet with the
    ecologists' understanding. For exapmle, it is claimed the project of
    tailing pits excludes any flows into the lake. Yet it is well known
    that over 70% of man-caused accidents in the world are connected to
    tailing pits. The explanations provided by the experts maintaining
    that the global experience of such enterprises should be adopted were
    not accepted by the ecologists who believe that the best experience
    lies in observing the law, because the whole Sevan basin may become
    a death zone even in case of a single accident.
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