ArmInfo."Allow me not to answer this question," Armenian Minister of Agriculture Artur Khachatryan told reporters on August 23, when he was asked by journalists why the current government, which had criticized the former government for water release from Sevan, is doing the same after coming to power.
As the Agriculture Minister pointed out, the current government "does not repeat the experience of the former" and did not "surpass" it in additional water intake. "Last year the matter concerned an additional release of 100 million cubic meters, and this year it is only about 40 million," he said, adding that from year to year the demand for water is increasing, the supply is declining, and there is a need for an organization efficient assembly of water through the construction of new reservoirs. "As of today about 2 billion cubic meters of water accumulate in the reservoirs, the same amount is being used, pouring into the Araks River and going to not so friendly neighbors - Turkey and Nakhichevan," Khachatryan explained. To note today, August 23 the Armenian government approved amendments to the law on the approval of the annual and comprehensive programs of measures to restore, preserve, reproduce and use the ecosystem of Lake Sevan . The bill provides for increasing the water intake from Lake Sevan from the current 170 million to 210 million cubic meters in 2018. Meanwhile, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted, today's decision is taken by the members of the government with a heavy heart so as not to harm the villagers.He stressed that the discussed issue is one of the most problems, his decision was preceded by a month and a half learning. "The discussions were stormy, and as a result of them it became clear that there are risks of creating a deadlock for agriculture," the head of the Armenian government said, adding that the situation is deadlocked for the authorities. "The irrigation system raises a lot of questions, and it is necessary to understand whether there are statements about the existence of a water mafia, if it is so, then it must capitulate as soon as possible," said Nikol Pashinyan.
Meanwhile, on August 2, in an interview with journalists, Armenian Minister of Agriculture Artur Khachatryan stated that instead of additional water release from Sevan, it is more reasonable to use deep wells. "Last year, as he recalled, there was an additional water flow from Lake Sevan, the money received for this went to the off-budget account." If this money is used to drill wells, Khachatryan believes, this will be more correct, both for Sevan and for agriculture of Armenia, "he said.
To recall, on July 17, 2017 the National Assembly of Armenia approved the law on increasing the volume of water release from Lake Sevan from 170 million cubic meters to 270 million cubic meters. The reason for this decision was the fact that the water basins in the country were not full. According to environmentalists fish farms cause no less serious damage to the environment and water resources of the country. However, according to the environmentalist, specialist on water resources Qnarik Hovhannisyan, the Armenian government asks to increase the releases each year, justifing the request with deficit of irrigation water, but in fact only about 25% of the water from Sevan reaches the farmers, the remaining 70% is lost. Thus, despite the fact that the Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia opposed the proposal to increase the water intake from Sevan, and independent experts unanimously reiterated that lowering the water level in Sevan would lead to irreversible consequences such as the intensification of the waterlogging process, the law was adopted, which, as expected, influenced the level of Lake Sevan. The authors of the law assured that additional releases of water per 100 million cubic meters, according to calculations, could lead to a decrease in the lake level by 8 cm, in case of which, even in comparison with the same day of the previous year, a high water level of Lake Sevan will be maintained at 10 cm (18-8). According to official data, in 2017 water intake totaled 266.757 million cubic meters of water, instead of the envisaged 270 million cubic meters. As a result, already at the beginning of the current season of holidays, ecologists began to alarm about the problem of algae fouling Sevan, which, according to experts, is caused not only by high air temperature, scanty precipitation, the dumping of extremely polluted waters into the basins of the country and the lack of water treatment stations, but also last year's additional water release.