ISSUES OF THE KURA-ARAKS RIVER BASIN: NOW AND THEN
02.06.2013 13:58 epress.am
The issue of water resource management and preservation of the
Kura-Araks basin concerns all the South Caucasus countries, since
the rivers forming the basin flow across the territories of the three
countries, imposing them to various constraints.
The constraints on the water resources are caused by different sources
of pollution.
Since the South Caucasus is teeming with conflicts, the water
resource management is under direct threat. Moreover, given the
long-lasting conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, every trans
boundary issue is being politicized. This also regards the water
resources management. All the countries equally suffer from this.
Meanwhile, the experts assert that the trans boundary issues are
specific and the efforts of one state are not enough to rectify them.
The lack of “consensus” among the countries’ officials affects
the quality of water resources – regardless where the river has its
source and where the waters flow, all the countries sharing the waters
generate constraints on the river basin.
Even though the waters of the South Caucasus are a common resource,
joint programs on monitoring the trans boundary rivers are implemented
exclusively in the frames of international projects.
This investigation seeks to tackle the issue from the perspective of
the two countries.
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The Kura-Araks river in Armenia-Iran border
Armenia
The Kura-Araks basin is the main water resource in the South Caucasus,
it is a part of the Caspian Sea basin, and all the issues on trans
boundary waters concern this river system, Thus, all the countries
sharing the basin have their own interests in this issue.
Given its geographical position, the rivers rise up from Armenia and
Georgia and flow to Azerbaijan.
Inga Zarafian, Head of “EcoLur” environmental NGO notes that it is
well known that the country, where the rivers rise up is considered
the pollutant pays. “There is no secret, and its natural – the more
downstream the area is, the more it is polluted, from the upstream
areas,” the expert says.
At the same time, Zarafian stresses that it is very hard to develop
standards, which could determine the polluter pays and its level of
responsibility for that, since the standards should be accepted by
all the countries.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the monitoring of the water
quality in the South Caucasus, including of the trans boundary rivers
was implemented in the frames of the decrees adopted by the Soviet
officials.
Seyran Minasyan, Head of RA Environmental Impact Monitoring Center
state non-commercial organization, explains that these standards
were an absurd, since they equally applied throughout the whole
Soviet territory.
Minasyan highlights three main causes for water pollution – population,
industry and technology. “From the point of technological development,
the countries of the basin are almost on the same level.
However, since the population of Azerbaijanis three times more than
our population, its contribution to the pollution is three times
more. Besides,Azerbaijanis situated in a low-land area, where the
water self-purification potential is lower”, Minasyan tells us.
Vladimir Narimanyan, Head of the Water Resources Management Agency
at the RA Ministry of Environmental Protection, says that the 20
biological water treatment plants built in Soviet Armenia for the
municipal sewage water treatment are currently in operational. “They
do not operate in Azerbaijan, either.”
Since 2000, 18 programs with a total cost of 25 million AMD have been
implemented in the region with the assistance of international donor
organizations. The programs related to different aspects of water
resources management – water quality, quantity, floods, etc.
The results of the monitoring, conducted under an EU project, suggest
establishing a reliable, comprehensive information center on the
water resources of the countries around the basin.
“It is [the center] already operating in Armenia, and some steps are
being taken in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, Georgia expresses only a
weak desire for rectifying the problem,” the monitoring inception
paper states.
Azerbaijan
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The place where Kura and Araks rivers are mixed
The downstream geographical position of Azerbaijan causes pollution
of its waters from the untreated waters of the upstream rivers of
Armenia and Georgia.
The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan conducts
regular monitoring of the waters of the Kura-Araks rivers. The
monitoring results permanently evidence that the waters flowing from
Georgia and Armenia into Azerbaijan are already polluted.
The results of monitoring in the Shihli-2 site have shown that the
concentration of phenols revealed in the Kura river is 4 times higher
of the permissible level, while the concentration of copper is 3 times
higher. In the Aghstafachay reservoir the concentration of phenol
is 3 time higher the permitted level, the concentration of copper –
is four times higher.
The monitoring of the river Araks has also indicated excessive amounts
of pollutants.
The Azerbaijani journalists participating in this project had visited
the site of Sugovushan, which in translation from Azerbaijani means
“confluence of rivers”. At this site, situated in the region of
Salyan, Araks meets Kura and flows into the Caspian sea. The two
rivers flow jointly, but they have different colors and do not mix
with each other.
One of the dwellers of the village who answered to our questions,
told about an old method of water treatment, which they used in their
family – special rocks, called “zey” are placed in the dump. These
rocks accelerate the sedimentation of heavy substances from the water.
Azad Aliyev, environmentalist, Head of “Social-Economic Investigations
Center” NGO pointed out the peculiarities of the trans boundary
problem. It is impossible to solve them by the efforts of only
one state.
For remedying the pollution problem of the trans boundary rivers,
Azerbaijan has ratified the Helsinki Convention on the Protection and
Use of Trans boundary Watercourses and International Lakes. Armenia
and Georgia are not signatories to this Convention.
Matanat Avazova, Deputy Director of Monitoring Department for
Environment Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan,
says that during the last 20 years Armenia and Azerbaijan have
dumped less amount of industrial waste than during the Soviet times,
since many factories are either not running or work at half of their
capacity. Despite the diminishing volumes of the Armenian mining
industry, the mine waste storages are still remaining. During rains
and floods, the water penetrates into these storages, gets polluted
and flows to Azerbaijan through the river Araks.
The polluted waters of Kura flows to Azerbaijanal so through the
territory of Georgia. Upon reaching the dam located near the city of
Mingechevir, up to 50-60% of the river’s waters are self-purified.
The Kurais not subject to pollution In the upstream area of the
country.
“Since Azerbaijan cannot receive fresh water in the upstream areas
of Kara and Araks, it implements its own treatment of the rivers.
17 water monitoring stations permanently operate on the Kura river,
early warning systems are running on the Araks, which provide the state
with precise information about the Kura and Araks waters quality”,
Avazova concludes.
Sources of Pollution of the Kara- Araks Basin in Armenia and Azerbaijan
The principal causes of deterioration of the surface waters of the
Kura-Araks basin are domestic, sewage, industrial and cattle waste,
as well as agricultural drainage waters.
All over the world, domestic and organic wastewater undergo biological
and chemical treatment before they are discharged into the surface
waters. At the moment, there are no water treatment facilities on
the Kura-Araks basin. The wastewater treatment plants built in the
Soviet Times are mostly inoperational, and the wastewater receives
only mechanical treatment.
According to the results of the EU monitoring of the trans-boundary
rivers of the Kara River basin, all the countries ensure mechanical
treatment only, and only in a limited number of cities. Under the
mechanical treatment, the water is purified in a pipe with a filter
of 20/20 cm, which is not capable of handling larger amount of sewage.
Armenia
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The Karchevan
According to Seyran Minasyan, Head of RA Environmental Impact
Monitoring Center state non-commercial organization, the situation
of the water pollution is dissimilar to that of the pre-Soviet times,
since the cause for pollution are now different.
Minasyan states that sewage waters are the main cause of negative
impact on the Armenian rivers. “Then and now, Yerevan has had a
population of around 1 million inhabitants. Even though the population
has decreased, the waste water plant is not operating.
Only mechanical treatment is implemented”, Minasyan says.
At the same time, the expert notes that due to the high
self-purification potential of the Armenian rivers, the impact
of the sewage waters on the trans boundary waters is basically
insignificant. The velocity of the Armenian rivers and the morphology
of the riverbed contribute to the saturation of oxygen and rapid
self-purification rates.
“The part of the Debet river, where the sewage of Vanadzor is dumped,
there is a high level of ammonium concentration. However, after 40-50
kilometers, this concentration is reduced, and before reaching the
boundaries ofGeorgia, the waters are in fact treated.
Thus, the organic and biological pollution of Khrami andKurarivers
through the Debet river do not have any transboundary impact. Except
for theriverofHrazdan, other rivers flowing across the RA territory,
do not have any transboundary impact”, the expert says.
Before the confluence with Araks, the waters of the Hrazdan river do
not manage to reach total self-purification, since the length is short
– about 20 km. Therefore, there is a certain threat of biological and
organic compound pollution on the trans boundary waters of the Araks
via the Hrazdan river. The expert also believes that the pollution
is also partly caused by the impacts of agriculture and cattle in
the Ararat Valley.
“On the other hand, due to the lack of water treatment plants, when
the Araks flows along the Armenian-Iranian border to the South of
Armenia, it is already polluted along the Azerbaijani-Iranian border
by the municipal and agricultural waste-water of Azerbaijani cities
Nakhichevan, Ordubard, and the Iranian city of Julfa”, Minasyan adds.
The research, administered under the EU project, stresses that due to
the higher level of population density and the low number of water
treatment facilities, the pollution with organic compounds makes an
issue for the Basin countries. “However the level of pollution is
within the permissible limits. As compared to the annual rates of
pollution of the Danube river waters, the level of pollution does not
exceed the allowable limits”, the inception paper of the monitoring
stresses.
Another principal pollutant of the basin waters is agriculture and
cattle. However, the pressure from these factors has increasingly
mitigated, as compared to the Soviet period.
“The surface of arable lands has drastically diminished on theterritory
of Armenia, and the amount of the fertilizers used has decreased,
leading to a multi-fold reduction in the amount of azotes, ammonium,
phosphor concentration, as compared to the Soviet years,” Seyran
Minasyan explains.
Minasyan reminds that previously there were about 700 plants running
in Armenia, including large chemical industries.” Today most of these
companies are in operational, while the ones that are operating do
not have the same power, therefore their contribution to the water
pollution is insignificant,” Martirosyan says.
The mining industry is recently developing in Armenia. According to
the monitoring of water quality in the surface waters, the level of
background pollution by the concentration of heavy metals is higher
in some rivers, such as Debet, Voghji. However, the concentration of
heavy metals is lower of the values, which are set by international
commissions for the good quality of transboundary waters, for example
for the Danube or Rhine.
“The maximum allowable concentration fixed at the Soviet times was 1
mg/l, which is now applied as a standard in Azerbaijan. In Europe, this
limit should not exceed 100 mg/l for theriver of Reine. This is why
the same concentration level in one country can be considered highly
excessive, while in another country – fitting to the standard. This
is a serious problem for the region,” Minasyan stresses.
According to the expert, a relatively high concentration of metals is
observed in the Voghji and Debet waters, caused by the operation of
the Copper-Molybdenum plant in Kajaran and the effluent discharge
from the Akhtala ore mining plant, respectively. “However the
transboundary impact of these pollutants are not significant, since
the metal concentration diminishes when the rivers flow downstream,
and across the inter-state border the concentration of metals in the
waters already meets the permissible limits”, Minasyan says.
The results of the EU monitoring indicate that level of background
pollution by the concentration of heavy metals is higher in
some rivers, such as Debet, Voghji. However, the concentration of
heavy metals is lower of the values, which are set by international
commissions for the good quality of transboundary waters, for example
for the Danube orRhine.
According to the results of the joint Armenian-Iranian monitoring
(2006-2011), the index of hydrogen concentration (pH) in Araks has
barely changed since the Karchevan tributary is discharged in it.
Around the world, including Armenia, the mining industry operates
at ore mining plants through closed water systems. This supposes
installation of tailing dams, where the water generated from mine
processing is stored. The closed system allows for sedimentation of
the solid particles from the waters in the tailings dams, and the
water can be consequently used for other causes.
In Agarak, everyone talked about the new facility, which would reduce
the environmental threats. The talks concern the renovation of the
tailing system, which seeks to process maximum amount of good metals
from the water, and reuse the water for other purposes.
Mkhitar Zakaryan, the Mayor of Agarak assures that the construction
is almost over.
“This is a unique technology for Armenia; likewise the environmental
issues of the Megrhi region would be rectified. Since the Soviet
times, sedimentation and water treatment was carried out in the tailing
dumps. Now this does satisfy the European standards. With a new system
the factory will meet the international standards, imposed by Europe,”
says the Mayor.
According to Zakaryan, the cost for arranging the new tailing system
is 4 million dollars and another 2 millions will be invested in it
“to mitigate the danger caused to the environment.”
Azerbaijan
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The Kura
The Kura meets the Araks and flows into the Caspian sea about200 kmaway
from the largest industrial city ofAzerbaijan,Baku. The officials at
the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan admit that
the domestic and agricultural waste generated by the households and
population at the near-shore area of the rivers cause local pollution.
The Kura and Araks flow jointly and separately across the most arable
lands of Azerbaijan, where farmers cultivate crops and vegetables,
including cotton. The farmers use organic and mined fertilizers,
special chemicals against pests for cultivating the lands.
“In the low-land areas of Azerbaijan and the upstream areas of the
Kara, the river is contaminated by biogenic substances, although the
level of contamination is not so large. Many years ago the Ministry
decided to apply biological methods of detecting biogenic effluents
that cause degradation of the Kura and Araks rivers water quality,”
says Matanat Avazova.
She says that it is difficult to prevent the farmers from discharging
animal slurry, domestic and other waste in the river. “The people
don’t want to pay the fee for waste management, while they recklessly
dump the waste in the river,” she adds.
The journalists, who participated in the project for studying the
pollution level of the Kura and Araks, witnessed how the untreated
household waste flows into the rivers through the small pipes that
stretch from the Novuzlu village, located in the Salyan region of
Azerbaijan.
The studies evidence that today it impossible to ensure absolute
protection of the rivers of Azerbaijan from domestic and household
waste. The pollutants generated from municipal waste and large
households are conveyed into collectors and are treated near when
they reach the sea, meanwhile the small settlements are in practice
deprived of any treatment facilities.
The Azerbaijani Government adopted and implements a state policy for
supplying its citizens with fresh water. Under this policy, permanent
and portable wastewater treatment plants were constructed in the large
urban areas. In the areas, where there are no water treatment plants,
the villagers clean the waters of the river themselves.
At the same time, wastewater and sewage treatment, as well as
solid waste recycling is experienced only in large urban areas of
Azerbaijan. The inhabitants of towns and villages with small population
pollute the waters of the river, not being subject to any punishment
by the law enforcement bodies.
A little bit upstream from the Novuzlu village located in the Salyan
region of Azerbaijan, Araks meets the Kura calmly and smoothly.
However, due to the natural color difference, the two rivers flow
separately and jointly. The dark-red waters of the Araks do not mix
with the grey waters of the Kara for a long time.
The family of the young farmer Sahib Mehtiyev consists of his young
wife and two children of a pre-school age. Sahib showed an old stone
square filter in the shape of a cone to the journalists. This porous
rock carved from limestone can store two buckets of river water.
First, the water is left in the buckets until the stone particles
are left over at the bottom of the bucket. In 24 hours, the water is
filtered in the stone and drops completely clean into the container.
The crystal clean water is drinkable, but the Metevins also boil the
filtered water.
Matanat Avazova, Deputy Director of Monitoring Department for
Environment Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan,
believes that the government does it best for supplying freshwater
to the residents of the low-land areas.
“Since 2007, about 200 modular water treatment plants have been
installed in Azerbaijan. They ensure the treatment of river waters
and the freshwater supply to the population. These facilities ensure
the provision of drinking water to the inhabitants of low-land areas
of Azerbaijan amounting to about 500,000 people”, Avazova says.
Water Management Policy of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Transboundary
cooperation
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The 1992 Helsinki Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary
Watercourses and International Lake sand the EU Water Framework
Directive (WFD) are the international legal framework for transboundary
water resources.
According to the WFD, member states develop management plans,
establishing a programme of measures aimed to achieve good status of
waters. For each river, standards for achieving concentrations near
background values should be defined. The background concentration
is the natural condition of the river, when it is not subject to
anthropogenic factors. This requirement implies setting measurement
standards for defining the natural condition of the rivers and striving
for their implementation along the whole river basin. Under the WFD,
the neighboring states should coordinate the water legislation for
achieving a consensus.
The three South Caucasus have different water quality measurement
standards.
Armenia
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Since gaining its independence, Armenia has not signed any
international convention on water resources management. However,
as a successor state of the Soviet Armenia, the Republic of Armenia
bears the obligations set out under the 1957 agreement with Iranand
the 1927 agreement with Turkey. Under the agreement concluded with
Turkey, the countries share equally all the common water resources
along their borders, while under the agreement with Iran- the two
states commit to the cleaning-up of the transboundary water and to
regular exchange of information.
The 2007-2013 Country Strategy Paper guides Armenian in the EU-Armenia
integration process. The paper commits the RA to implementing
the measure, defined in the priority areas in compliance with the
international and European standards and principles.
Seyran Minasyan, Head of RA Environmental Impact Monitoring Center
state non-commercial organization, explains that headwaters and the
waters of the streams have different biochemical background. This
means that the condition of each tributary – upstream, middle stream
and downstream – is different. At the source, the waters are in
their natural condition, while the streams are already affected by
anthropogenic factors, expressed in differently in different regions –
agriculture, industry, etc.
The January 27, 2011 RA Government’s decree defines the 14 largest
river basins of Armenia and the water quality measurement for surface
waters of the river basins and their different parts. The measurement
standards are based on the natural values of pollution and the
permissible limits for separate parts. Thus, the decree provides for
different quality standards for the same river. Under the standards,
used at the Soviet times, every substance was classified by a single
indicator – the highest indicating poor quality, the lowest – good.
With the current standards, the quality of each surface water is
divided into 5 classes, ranging from high, bad, normal and other
classes.
Vladimir Narimanyan, Head of the Water Resources Management Agency at
the RA Ministry of Environmental Protection says that the defined water
quality standards are consonant to requirements of the EU Directive.
“Among the CIS countries, we are the only country, which has a system
for ranking the water quality. We have to clean our waters so that
the waters ranging in the 5th category range in the 4th, the ones of
the 4th- in the 3rd up until the first”, Narimanyan explains”.
According to Narimanyan, the construction of a municipal sewage plant
in Yerevan is a number one priority. “Moreover, not only the efforts
ofArmenia, but of the whole region should be directed towards the
construction of this plant”.
Narimanyan tells us that the all the water treatment plants should
be re-built under the 30-years- long-term action plan set out in the
National Water Programme of theRepublic of Armenia.
“At the moment the reconstruction process has started at the basin
of the Lake Sevan, the water treatment plant of Jermuk is also being
re-built. For this purpose we cooperate with international donor
organization,” Narimanyan informs.
Narimanyan says that to avoid mutual accusation, a monitoring should
be administered: “Let’s monitor each other and define the background
pollution levels.”
Since 2005,Armenia implements a joint monitoring with Iran. For already
12 years, water samples are collected and analyzed in the laboratories.
“The results of the Armenian-Iranian monitoring showed that the
human exposure in Armenia meets the permissible levels. We are now
planning to monitor all the bordering waters jointly with Azerbaijan,”
Narimanyan says.
Water management expert Vahagn Tonoyan says that under a UNDP project,
“Reducing Transboundary Degradation in the Kura/Aras River Basin”,
within 2005-2007 the experts in the field sought to define the existing
transboundary issues and to assess the current state, including the
water quality and the level of ecological degradation.
“But when the pollution had to be evidenced by factual data, it turned
out that it was very difficult, since after the collapse of the Soviet
Union the hydrological monitoring systems of all the countries were
significantly damaged,” Tonoyan says.
According to the EU monitoring results, there are 100 hydrological
observatories inArmenia, 88 – in Azerbaijan, 9 – in Georgia. There
are 50 water-sampling stations in Azerbaijan, 131- in Armenia and
25 – in Georgia. The water quantity is measured at the hydrological
observatories, while the water quality is analyzed at the sampling
stations.
The installation of sampling stations is contingent upon different
standards and a certain logic. For example, they should be constructed
before and after large urban areas and industrial plants to identify
their impact on the rivers. To get the whole picture, water samples
are collected from the stations twelve times a year.
To determine the accuracy of the laboratory studies in SC countries,
1.2 EURO was provided to the countries under an EU project. The
laboratory equipment purchased under the project should identify the
composition of the water substances. Afterwards the water brought
from Slovenia was sent for analysis in the laboratories of the three
countries. The results of the analysis substantially differed.
According to the EU inception papers, which present the monitoring
results,Armenia’s studies were the most valid.
“The data are not reliable. When one of the parties accuses the other
that the values are not valid in terms of one standard, the same party
provides a value that differs 50 times in terms of another parameter,”
Tonoyan says.
In the frames of this investigation, Anatoly Pichugin, Coordinator
of the EU Programme, answered to the questions of the Armenian
journalist by email. He, specifically, noted that Armenia,
Azerbaijanand Georgia have different systems and standards of water
quality measurement. “Another thing is that the water quality data
generated by the countries are often inadequate and unreliable.
Therefore the results of water quality assessment produced by the
countries are not in fact comparable with each other. Also, the current
approaches/criteria for water quality assessment used in Armenia,
Georgia and Azerbaijan are very different from the approach/criteria
used in the European Union” Pichugin stresses.
In its conclusion on the monitoring project, the EU stresses that
one of the main issues of the water resources management in the SC
is the lack of any bi-lateral inter-governmental agreement providing
for cooperation on water resources management.
“The lack of common policies and approaches has resulted in different
misunderstanding and arguable findings,” the conclusion stresses.
Azerbaijan
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The Kura
Azerbaijan uses Soviet standards of water quality measurement. The
standards were defined in 1988 by the USSR Ministry of Health.
Environmentalist Telman Zeynalov answered to the question about the
application of the Soviet water quality standards in Azerbaijan. He
noted that the USSR used high-level environmental standards.
“Azerbaijani officials prefer to apply the Soviet standards of water
quality, which is justified and there is no sense in changing them,”
the expert says.
Matanat Avazova, Deputy Director of Monitoring Department for
Environment Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan is
aware of the conflict between the SC countries due to the differences
in measurements by the three countries. In response to the Azerbaijani
statements about the pollution of the Kura, the Georgians refer to the
differences in the quality standards, and highlight them as the main
reason for the incompliance between the data provided by Azerbaijan
and Georgia.
In Azerbaijan, the water quality is observed thou 72 automatic
monitoring networks, located in 43 water sites – 27 on rivers, 4 on
dams, 11 on lakes and 1 – on the seashore. In compliance with the
approved methodology, regular water sampling and testing is carried
out on these sites, the official website of the Ministry of Ecology
and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan indicates.
Every 2 months the Ministry stores the monitoring results of the
Kuraand Araks rivers on the eco.gov.az website. The waters are
monitored against 4 main standards – flow speed (m/sec), concentration
of copper, phenols and dissolved oxygen c in one liter of water. The
level of dissolved oxygen in the two rivers has always been within
the normal range. The results of the monitoring of the oxygen level
have always met the accepted standards (5,34 – 6,64 mg/l), while the
concentration of phenols (the standard norm is 0,001 mg/l) and copper
always exceed the permissible limits by 3 or 4 times.
Water resources expert Rafik Verdiyev does not believe that the
application of different quality standards is an obstacle for the
cooperation between environmentalists.
“The problem is not in the standards. And with this, I mean the
level of dangerous effluents in the water. The countries may apply
different methods, but in all the cases, the level, for example of
phosphor that exceeds the maximum allowable level is not allowable.”
Verdiyev stresses that the EU Directive sets a requirement for having
a ranking system for water quality. “If we proceed from this standard,
none of the SC rivers, maybe except for some small high-mountainous
tributaries, comply to the EU requirements”, the expert says.
Even thoughAzerbaijanuses the Soviet standards of water quality,
the possible application of new standards is now being discussed.
“After long discussions, the EU suggested to all of the post-Soviet
countries apply new water quality standards. Azerbaijani officials did
not say “no” to this, even though they made some remarks. A commission
is now set inAzerbaijanfor developing these standards. I think that
thatAzerbaijanhas a positive opinion towards the EU standards,”
Verdiyev notes.
Reflecting on the issue of regional cooperation between the
environmentalists, the expert stressed that there is a total lack of
bilateral cooperation between Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts,
though they are involved in multi-lateral programs.
Anna Muradyan, Armenia
Kamal Ali, Azerbaijan
This investigation is done with support from the Danish Association
for Investigative Journalism /Scoop.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.epress.am/en/2013/02/06/issues-of-the-kura-araks-river-basin-now-and-then.html