Armenian experts have lately been forced to make modifications in the classification of Armenia's ecological problems, which had gone unchanged for decades. Until 2004-05 that list was as follows - Lake Sevan, air pollution in Yerevan, forest management, soil degradation, emissions control, the preservation of endemic species and so on.

Minister of Ecology Vardan Aivazyan said that the Sevan issue was now entering its second stage. This means that if so far the problem was to prevent the water level from dropping, now the concern is to control the rising level of water and to supervise it, as well to ensure that it does not happen due to dirty water.

Sevan in the region

Sevan has great significance for the whole region. Vladimir Movsisyan, the vice-President of the Lake Sevan Expert Committee and member of the National Water Board, mentioned the limited reserves of drinking water in the world and cited findings by English researchers, which claimed that in the near future one liter of fresh water will have greater value than one liter of oil. The largest body of fresh water in our region is Lake Sevan, and by our region Movsisyan does not just mean the South Caucasus, but also the Near East.

The high altitude of the lake (1916 m above sea level) also allows for the natural flow of drinking water to all the centers of the region - Yerevan, Baku, Tbilisi, Tavriz, Baghdad and so on.

However...

Sevan was "vegetating", until 2000

From 1933, the largest lake in the region was exploited carelessly and without any measures taken for replenishment. 26 cubic kilometers of water were released from a total volume of 58 cubic kilometers for electricity and irrigation purposes, thus lowering the water level by 19 meters. Naturally, various parameters changed drastically - the temperature and acidity of the water were no longer the same, the level of nitrogen products rose in the water, and phosphorus levels dropped. This caused the lake to "vegetate". "Vegetating" for a lake means to stagnate. Experts describe it in a harsher fashion, "The lake turned from a developing one into a dying one." Finally, in the 1960s, Soviet scientists came to understand this. Calculations were made and programs were planned that would lead to a rise in the water level by at least 6 meters, which would stop the stagnation, and would bring the water quality closer to drinking standards. It would then be possible to consider other measures to further raise the water quality. But even these 6 meters seemed unrealistic back then.

Nevertheless, the Soviet republic took a series of steps that not only aimed at lowering the flow of water away from the lake, but also at providing some inflow back into Sevan. That was the purpose behind the Arpa-Sevan-Vorotan tunnels, the reservoirs of Aparan, Azat and Her-her as well as the pump stations and irrigation systems at Ranchpar and Mkhchyan. According to Vladimir Movsisyan's data, these structures cost more than US $500 million. However, the outflow of water for electricity generation and irrigation continued.

How long?

In his interview with us, Minister of Ecology Vardan Aivazyan said that the 1999 Presidential Order to cease outflow from Sevan for electricity purposes was critical in saving the lake. Besides this, the Parliament also passed a "law regarding Sevan" in 2001, which outlined the volume of permitted outflow. Thus, if the annual outflow of water from the lake earlier constituted up to 1-1.5 billion cubic meters (with an annual minimum of 256 million cubic meters), this law limited it to 150-170 million cubic meters per year. Experts in this field say that the outflow for irrigation is strictly within legal limits. The Complex Program for the Replenishment of the Sevan Ecosystem, which planned to raise the level of the lake by 6-6.5 meters over 30 years, was also accepted as law.

Nature disrupts plans

While scientists and officials were deciding to raise the water level by an annual 22 cm to reach their stated target after 30 years, Sevan was a step ahead of everyone. Over the last three years, the water level has risen by an annual average of 40 cm. It would seem at first that the whole country would rejoice at this news, but rumors doing the rounds in ecological circles since July suggest something quite different.

Information surfaced in the Armenian press suggesting that the government wanted to arrest this rapid rise in the water level because many rich people had built houses and hotels on the shores of Sevan, considering the possible future rise in water level to be unlikely, and now this rise was threatening these structures.

When the Ministry of Ecology organized discussions in this regard, representatives of ecological NGOs voiced concerns that their greatest fear was coming true - the government was not thinking about Lake Sevan, but rather about the interests of the owners of legal and illegal structures built on its banks. Gagik Tadevosyan, former president of the parliamentary ecological committee and currently a permanent member of the Eurasian committee of the Convention to Combat Desertification said, "These discussions aimed at gauging the attitude of the NGOs, to lay the foundation for the arrest of the rise in water level. They shouldn't have organized a discussion, they should have accelerated the realization of the annual plan within the Sevan Complex Program."

The Ministry of Ecology announced that the government did not wish to slow the rising level of the lake, but wanted to make it more manageable. "Our aim is not just to raise the water level at Sevan, but also to raise it with clean water," said the program representatives. "Raising it with clean water" means to clear the area around the banks of any vegetation, forests and structures before they are submerged, to install water pipes for nearby towns and a road which would replace a nearly 30 km segment of the national highway which is also under threat of submersion. The government of Armenia plans to do so over a period of 30 years, and needs to raise the required US$ 300 million taking the deadline into consideration. The Minister of Ecology said that, at this rate, the lake will rise by 6-6.5 m of water in 10-12 years. "A four-year interim program gave results that were 2.5 times greater," field experts proudly said, admitting that heavy precipitation also had a big role to play in the revival of Sevan.

One step forward, two steps back?

On September 1, 2005, when the government took the decision to increase the irrigational water outflow from Sevan to 150 million cubic meters, raising it by 30 million cubic meters, Gagik Tadevosyan said, "They are already lowering the water level, or, to be more accurate, they aren't letting it rise." Tadevosyan admitted that it was for the experts to say whether the extra 30 million cubic meters were necessary. However, he also added that the rumors mentioned above say a lot more about any such decision than the suggestion that it was done for irrigational purposes. Vladimir Movsisyan, vice-President of the Lake Sevan Expert Committee, considered the extra irrigational outflow to be justified, considering the relatively dry summer and low precipitation this year. The Ministry of Ecology also added that this decision was within the guidelines of the law regarding Sevan.

Sevan keeps rising and growing in beauty

"If this goes on, the Sevan peninsula will be an island again," said an old man standing on the shore, his voice filled with glee. The waves were noticeably higher, and the marshy portions from last year were gone without a trace. The vacationers on the beach said that they were very happy with the higher water level - the water was cleaner, and it's always more pleasant to swim in cleaner water. Even those who had leased portions of the beach were happy, although their business could suffer because of it. The rising water has already covered some of the beaches and continues to threaten others, including some of the structures built on them. In this case, the owners would be forced to lease other land, and also to remove mobile structures from where they could be submerged to safer areas. However, it is difficult not to believe that their positive reaction is genuine, even if the situation is against their financial gain. After all, they realize that if the lake were to stagnate, they would be lose their business completely.

No need to panic

Today 410 hectares of land has been submerged by the rising waters, of which 100 hectares were artificial forests and do not threaten to pollute the lake, according to experts. But if the program to raise the water level by 6-6.5 m is realized, then 4427 hectares of land would be submerged, of which 3130 hectares is covered by forests.

"I am categorically for raising the water level by 6 meters and I don't understand this level of concern. Why are we so panicked that it's rising? We took certain steps and caused the water level to rise," said Movsisyan. The lack of financial means at this point to prepare the surrounding land for further rise in the water level does not worry Movsisyan either. He said that the residential areas around the lake had a shortage of firewood. There was no need to complicate the situation by announcing tenders or competitions. If the government were to appeal to the local population, they would gladly cut the trees in the area and clear the land. As for preparing the remaining land for the rising waters, the finances required are not large, according to Movsisyan.

"The Caucasus - one home"

Solving the Sevan problem will not end Armenia's ecological concerns. And in general, in contrast to communist times, it is very difficult, and almost impossible, ecologically clean one country separately.

"The Caucasus is one home," said Minister of Ecology Vardan Aivazyan, "Nature knows no borders, it is continuous and ubiquitous. Civilized society should accept responsibility for maintaining nature."

Aivazyan said that rough calculations put the population of the South Caucasus at around 15 million. According to him, there are three main concerns for those 15 million people, which are the joint and integrated management of water, preservation of ecosystems and especially endemic species, as well as the control of industrial emissions.

The minister assured us that there already is cooperation with Georgia over control of illegal deforestation. He also mentioned a unique "exchange" program involving the mouflon species from Armenia and royal deer from Georgia.

So far cooperation with the Azerbaijani side has been limited to social interaction - joint discussions, round tables and seminars. However, Aivazyan said that it was necessary for the ministers of the two countries to meet, which the Armenian side had proposed, with no reaction from Azerbaijan so far. Why did Armenia officially not react to the news in Azerbaijan that Armenia was releasing cholera bacilli into the Arax river, which would then flow in Azerbaijan? "From time to time, Armenia responds to such baseless and absurd allegations, proposing visits by any international organization and monitoring in any format as well as in any area that causes concern to our neighbors. That could be deforestation, radioactive waste, or toxic-chemical pollution. But the Azerbaijani side never reacts to these proposals, despite the existence of a number of potential joint programs. On the contrary, Azerbaijan always politicizes these issues," said the Minister of Ecology. Speaking specifically about Arax, he gave the following explanation, "Arax flows through Iran before entering Azerbaijan. So if we were to pollute the river, Iran would be the first to complain. But Iran has no complaints." The Ministry of Ecology thought it pertinent to announce once more, for everyone in the whole of the South Caucasus, the decision of the Armenian authorities regarding the willingness to cooperate extensively over ecological (and not only ecological) issues in the region, despite the presence of conflicts and contradictions. An example of such cooperation could be the German "Caucasus Initiative" program, which includes allocations of 10 million euros to the three republics for work in the sphere of ecology. Armenia has already signed the contract, received the money, and is preparing to found the "Arpi" national park on the Javakhk plateau. Georgia is slightly behind, while Azerbaijan is still in the negotiation stage.