BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 15. Armenia is lagging behind Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) standards, Trend reports.
This issue was reflected in an article published in The Caspian Post news portal.
"Back in 2015, the previous Armenian government committed to becoming compliant with the EITI to bring the country to international standards in terms of ethics, honesty, open data, and civil society participation. However, according to a World Bank Report, the initial steps lacked substance," the article said.
According to the article's author, in 2018, when the Armenian authorities began to take the first steps towards the transformation of the industry, these actions turned out to be very doubtful.
"In 2018, rigorous inspections were initiated as part of the initiative, and certain mines - notably the Lichk Copper Mine in the south - closed rather than submitting to full checks. In February 2018, the operation of a large copper-molybdenum mine near Teghut in Lori Province was temporarily suspended following a leak from its tailings dam into the Shnogh River," the author said. "In April that year, the same company’s major copper smelting works at Alaverdi were fined for its excessive sulphur dioxide emissions."
Initially unable or unwilling to upgrade out-dated equipment, the copper production in Armenia’s ‘copper city’ ground to a halt, only restarting in 2022 once new, cleaner furnace technology had been fitted, the author added.
The article stressed that the Teghut mine reopened in 2019 with a strengthened tailings dam and a reforestation project (later found to be partially fraudulent), and as of June 2023, the mining operation is due to be expanded, having passed an environmental impact assessment.
Previously, Azerbaijani environmental activists sent an open letter to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, mentioning enterprises of Armenia polluting environment.
The letter noted that degradation of the ecosystem as a result of ongoing mining operations is not only a threat to Armenia's environment, but also a great threat to the neighboring countries, and demanded Armenia to immediately stop the work in the mining industry that threatens the region and the planet as a whole.
In addition, the letter pointed out that the construction of a new metallurgical plant in Arazdayan, which is being built against the requirements of environmental norms and international conventions, should also be stopped.
According to the letter, the potential impacts of toxic chemical waste from this metallurgical plant on the local ecosystem could be enormous.
The discharge of waste into the Araz river means a tragedy for the creatures living in the river and for the large farms that use the Araz water for irrigation. This impact on drinking water supplies can also lead to the spread of infectious diseases in border areas. This will create a serious public health crisis for both Azerbaijan and Armenia, the letter concluded.