TAILINGS DAM RUNOFF FLOWING INTO SYUNIK RIVER

Marine Martirosyan

13:45, September 25, 2013

For the past five days, runoff from the Artzvanik tailings dam has
been flowing directly into the Norashenik River.

The tailings dam is the property of the Zangezour Copper-Molybdenum
in Armenia’s Syunik Province.

The attached video was taken by the Sustainable Development NGO based
in the town of Kapan.

NGO President Armen Parsadanyan was informed of the situation by
residents of Norashenik village.

The river water is used to irrigate village fields in the surrounding
area.

Parsadanyan says he alerted the head of the Syunik Inspectorate of
Armenia’s Ministry of the Environment who confessed that the company
had exceeded permissible outflow levels and would be fined.

Inspectorate Head Levon Petrosyan told Hetq that they were
investigating the incident, taking water samples of the outflow,
and would be publishing their results in a few days.