Lake Sevan Turned into Business and on Verge of Extinction, Say Experts

There are serious ecological changes happening in the Sevan basin and the reason for this is the unstable state of the water in the lake. State officials and management systems play with the water like a toy, lowering and raising the water level as they please. 

Speaking about the Armenian government's proposal to increase by 40% annually the water drained from Lake Sevan and its consequences, member of the civil initiative SOS Sevan and coordinator of the Environmental Public Alliance Silva Adamyan, speaking to journalists in Yerevan today, presented several data on the issue. 

Adamyan said that expert studies have pointed to the rather poor quality of the lake water and if things continue this way, Lake Sevan will be completely lost in the coming years. 

"Expert Seyran Minasyan's water analysis leads to a very interesting conclusion: we have to begin an uncompromising fight for the lake. Research carried out by the scientist shows that in 4–5 years, the content of organic substances in the water reached level 3 to 4 contamination — 60% of the entire volume of the lake. This means that more than half of the waters are fit for neither use nor ecosystems nor the fish. These official figures testify to the catastrophic state of Lake Sevan's waters," she said. 

Adamyan stressed that the lake is significant to Armenia in terms of national security: "The lake fed us during the [years of power outages after the collapse of the Soviet Union], it gave us water and energy, with which we lived."

Another press conference participant, expert Aram Grigoryan, said that some see Lake Sevan as an ecological system, a foundation, but for some it's a business, a resource that can be sold and make profits, and these two approaches are in constant conflict. 

"The problem arose as a result of mismanagement: the National Assembly adopts a law, and a few days later, covert amendments are made to that law —240 million cubic meters of water becomes 270 [million]. The decision is adopted without taking into account the opinions of expert, scientific, public, or responsible bodies. The elite decided that 240 [million] was too little; they made it 270 [million]; and the imitation of reasoning is the following: we have to get water to the villagers. No one from the state system said how water went from [Lake] Sevan to the village; second, there is such a defect in management that the total useful part of the water resource is lost upon reaching the consumer. This is a problem. Not having skills in the management system or having them but not implementing them or implementing them but quite poorly, we are saying, let’s do nothing. There’s [Lake] Sevan; the rains will come next year; it'll fill up. Sevan is not a barrel — it has strategic significance for Armenia. And we have to take urgent measures to save it," he said.