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.
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