Aida Khachatryan, a resident of the village of Geghanist in Ararat Marz, blames her respiratory ailment on the foul-smelling vapors emanating from the irrigation canal that runs alongside her house. She complains that, “We’ve been breathing that stench for 15 years now. They’ve pulled every sort of garbage from that canal - even dead pigs, cats and dogs. We don’t have the means to circulate the air in the house. What we need is some real oxygen to breathe.”

She’s convinced that the biological waste in the Geghanist ditch can be traced to the restaurants and leisure facilities in Argavand.

Galust Khachikyan, Director of the Musaler Water Consumers Society agrees with her. Mr. Khachikyan has already begun to clean out the canals in preparation of the upcoming irrigation season.

The Geghanist canal, which draws its water from the Hrazdan River, is the most polluted of the three waterways maintained by the Musaler WCS. The two others, the Musaler and Etchmiadzin canals, are only cleansed of the accumulated sediment, while the biological waste in the Geghanist canal must also be cleaned out.

The surface of this canal is so completely covered with plastic bottles and other debris that the flow beneath remains practically invisible to the naked eye.

In the beginning of March we witnessed the clean-up operations along one kilometer of the four-kilometer long canal. Fifteen truckloads of garbage were removed from the canal. The trucks proceeded to dump the collected trash back in the Hrazdan River. (This has always been accepted procedure - H.A.)

A representative of Musaler WCS on the scene who didn’t want us to see what was going on said that while they understood that the policy was wrong they had no alternate solution. “If we had recycling plants, we wouldn’t need to pollute the Hrazdan River. Since they don’t exist, what else can we do?” the official asked.

Srbuhi Harutyunyan, President of the Social-Ecological Association, stated that several sections of the ROA water statutes, prohibiting pollution, were being grossly violated. Article 114, for example, envisages both criminal and administrative penalties for such actions. Mrs. Harutyunyan stated that, “ Water polluted with biological waste not only presents a danger when used for irrigating fields but poses a direct threat to individuals as well. People in prolonged direct contact with such an environment are at greater risk for contacting a variety of diseases, including hepatitis of the liver.”

We contacted the Ministry of Nature Protection to find out the health risks posed by such an environment and the actual pollution levels recorded in the Hrazdan River’s Geghanist section. Our inquiry was bounced from one department to another. We were finally transferred to the Ministry’s hot line. Arcrun Pepanyan, Head of the Public Relations Department, told us that, “We will process your inquiry and submit it to the appropriate agencies. Once they have clarified the situation, appropriate steps will be taken.”

We then asked Mr. Pepanyan, “What you’re essentially saying is that this longstanding problem has never been taken up by the Ministry?” He answered by stating, “No one ever sounded the alarm bell.”