Epress.am News from Armenia
At its last meeting, the Government of Armenia adopted a decision to approve a technical job to introduce an automated, centralized system concerning water use in the Ararat Valley. This seemingly innocuous decision, however, has serious undertones, reports local daily Zhoghovurd.
The next step of this program is that RA Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan will reopen the artesian wells, which the previous government closed to prevent an environmental disaster.
"Everything becomes clear from one of the paragraphs in the decision: 'Provided for in the first phase is a sub-basin pilot project, giving priority to fish breeders'," reports the paper.
According to rumors, the major fish farms in Ararat marz (province) belong to RA Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan.
Heritage Party MP Zaruhi Postanjyan raised this issue months ago in Armenia's National Assembly, during the discussion on amendments to the Law on Nature Protection and Nature Utilization Payments and fines in the case of violations.
"In this room are people who own lakes and engage in fish production; for example, Hovik Abrahamyan. The 300,000 dram fine won't harm him and [other] similar major producers — it will simply leave the small [producers] out of the competition," she said.
According to research, the amount of groundwater resources have significantly dropped in the Ararat Valley, which, according to experts, is a result of the indiscriminate use of water by fish breeders and producers.