"When we reached the village, we saw that waste water was flowing through the village streets; the stench was unbearable. It was an unsanitary situation, to say the least," recalled Derenik Mkhitaryan, the head of the Kotayk Marzpet's Office's Department of Agriculture and Ecology. This stench was emanating from Garni, famous for its four-thousand-year-old pagan temple. The sewers were blocked, and chemical waste from the local tannery flooded the village. After the National Security Service sounded the alarm, officials from the Marzpet's Office visited the tannery to find out what was going on.

The tannery, Sazovar Ltd., was established in the early 1990s in a barn that had been built thirty years earlier. It is owned by Samvel Harutiunyan, Gagik Yeghiazaryan, and Zorik Grigoryan. When we visited the factory it looked abandoned; there was a pile of hides on the floor and some outdated equipment. We were accompanied be a relative of one of the owners, Garnik Yeghiazaryan. Their accountant, Atom Martirosyan, answered our questions. "Yes," he admitted, "Sometimes people here complain about the smell." The accountant noted that they were repairing the blocked sewer. It is possible, meanwhile, that extremely toxic substances have already mixed with the local drinking water. And the seepage of contaminated water into farmland may have tragic consequences.

As long ago as 1999, villagers complained in writing to the local mayor. The mayor himself confirmed that such an alarm had been raised and urgent measures had been taken to keep the toxic waste out of the drinking water supply. That was five years ago, but the problem is still all too real for the people of Garni.

The head of the Abovyan Inspection Service of the Ministry of Ecology, Mkrtich Vanoyan, noted that his agency plans to carry out an inspection of the factory at the end of this year. But the deputy head of the State Anti-Epidemic Sanitary Inspection of the Ministry, Marietta Basilisyan, explained, "In the past, a company like that could only be licensed after they received a positive evaluation from our inspectors. This procedure has not been in place for a few years now, 'so as not to create additional obstacles for producers.' But a necessary condition does exist now- when a manufacturer is licensed, it must inform our agency and be registered by us. Often, businesses conceal the fact that they have been licensed and operate secretly, underground. We haven't been informed about the factory in Garni at all. We haven't heard of it or received any complaint in writing."

The tannery has successfully avoided any control by state agencies, control that they say "complicates matters."

The accountant assured us that they have certain documents but didn't show them to us, saying, "They are kept by the director and he is not here."

We found out that Sazovar, Ltd. received permission from the Agency on Water Resources Management of the Ministry of Ecology to use water from the village drinking water network, along with a document outlining permissible limits of discharge into the local sewer system. This system, by the way, flows into the Garni Gorge so popular with locals and tourists alike.

Srbuhi Harutiunyan, chairman of the Social and Ecological Association, told us that dangerous substances were used in the tanning process. "6-valent chromium compounds and acids are used. When working with 6-valent chromium, the factory must have a local station with proper equipment for preliminary purification. The purification station can be build only after the design has been approved by the corresponding services of the Ministries of Ecology and Health. In such stations, hazardous substances must be 'fished out' of the waste and salvaged. If the salvaged substances are dangerous for the environment by their chemical composition, they must be reprocessed, after which they should be transported to another location. Permission for this is given by officials from the sanitary service of the Ministry of Ecology."

In the past, in order to open a tannery, a company had to submit a design that included a description of the purification equipment to be used. The design had to be approved by the local sanitary agency, which would then supervise construction and be involved in the opening of the factory. Today, this procedure is no longer followed.

Was Sazovar Ltd. given permission or supervised when it went into operation years ago?

To find out, we went to the head of the Abovyan branch of the Anti-Epidemic Sanitary Inspection of the Ministry of Ecology, A. Melikyan. He told us, "The factory has been in operation for a long time. I can't say whether they have permission or not." It turned out that years ago, an inspection of the Garni tannery was conducted by the Department of Ecology of the Kotayk Marzpet's Office. The inspection revealed that the factory didn't meet sanitary and ecological standards. There was no purification equipment; toxic waste was dumped into the sewer system, and flowed from there into the Garni Gorge.

Following this inspection, production was shut down and the owners promised to dig septic pits to purify the waste. We weren't shown these pits, although we were assured that they existed.

The fact is, the tannery in Garni violates every safety standard. "Even if septic pits exists, it doesn't matter, they represent time bombs not only for this village, but for the entire population of the republic," Srbuhi Harutiunyan warned. "In accordance with existing anti-epidemic and sanitary standards, the use of 'absorbing pits' is forbidden, since substances that are extremely hazardous to the health mix with groundwater and penetrate agricultural fields and pastures. They can penetrate below the earth-crust into deeper layers to reach the Ararat Valley from Garni, and even farther."