Late yesterday evening, residents of Kapan, capital of Armenia’s southern Syunik Province, again reported that the Voghji River passing through the city had been polluted.

David Hakobyan, a member for Guides from the South NGO, told Hetq that the alarm was raised by the Syunik branch of the Environmental and Mining Inspectorate, after its specialists conducted a water sampling of the river.

Hakobyan says they traced the source of the pollution to the village of Nerkin Giratagh, where, on October 17, as a result of an accident at the Zangezur Copper and Molybdenum Combine’s (ZCMC) tailings dam, pollutants spilled into the Voghji River.

Hakobyan adds that the Giratagh tributary of the Voghji was found to be clean.

The specialists then descended towards Kapan and found that the Voghji River had been polluted when a tunnel at the Jrakhor hydropower plant had been cleaned.

The tunnel had been polluted due to the October 17 accident at the ZCMC.

The Jrakhor plant consists of three small hydropower plants - Voghji-1, Voghji-2, and Voghji-3, which operate on a cascade system.

Built in the early 20th century, it’s one of the oldest hydropower plants in Armenia. The operator is Kapan-Energy CJSC.

Photo: Voghji River (archive photo)