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A Call for a Moratorium on Open-Pit Mining
Anne Orlando
Hundreds of open-pit mines are operating in Armenia. Mining activity, such as blasting or carving the mountain slopes, also dumping the wastes generated from mining, rock processing and ore-extraction activities, into gorges (into riverbeds and/or on riverbanks), are all unregulated activities in Armenia. Open-pit mining has a very high waste-to-product ratio (roughly 99 tons of waste to each ton of copper, and even far more waste in gold mining), making waste the major product of the mining industry.
A recent article - http://www.armenian
reporteronline.am/go/article/2011-01
-25-mining-industry-causes-lasting-
damage-to-syunik-environment - describes in detail the destruction inflicted upon agricultural land, the damage caused to human health, to forests, to precious water resources and to entire village communities as a result of mining activity and the large volumes of generated toxic slurry - the mine tailings.
The Greens’ Union, Ecolur, Ecological Academy, and many other NGOs, as well as many environmentally concerned individuals, are asking that the Armenian government issue a MORATORIUM against all new open-pit mining prospects, and to re-examine/ reconsider the mining permits of several operating and prospective open-pit mines, such as the gold mine near Lake Sevan (threatens to contaminate Sotk River, which flows into Lake Sevan), the planned copper mine near Teghut, (where the riverbed of Dukanadzor River will be used as a graveyard for the waste rock, while the riverbed of Kharatanoc River will become the graveyard of toxic mine-tailings-waste), the planned uranium mines, the planned iron mines near the city of Hrazdan, (which, if realized, will endanger the safety of the sources of drinking water of both Hrazdan and Yerevan cities), and several others.
Please give us your personal and professional support to this action - support our demand for a Moratorium on open-pit mining.
For the sake of Armenia’s future generations, we must put a stop to the destruction caused by mining companies.
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Dr. Anne Shirinian-Orlando
US Coordinator of The Greens Union of Armenia
Contact: 1-732-462-9089, anahid.orlando@gmail.com
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