AFTER SHPP CONSTRUCTION ONLY SEWAGE TO BE LEFT IN THE RIVER MEGHRI, RESIDENT OF LEHVAZ
16:47 November 14, 2014
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 Lazarian,
chief engineer of projecting company “Gidepinvest” LLC.
Ecolur asked what influence the Small HPP will have on the ecosystem
of the river Meghri. Edvard Lazarian 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 Lazarian 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.