RA PM watches over works for Nubarashen waste burial place clean-up

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan watched over the works for Nubarashen waste burial place clean-up, launched as a response to warnings from ecologists. The Armenian government assigned AMD 32 mln for the purpose.

The Soviet-era site located near Yerevan's southern Nubarashen suburb contains more than 500 metric tons of DDT and other poisonous substances that had been used by Armenian chemical enterprises.

“We can’t take any decision unless experts draw a conclusion but the government allocated enough funds to prevent grave consequences,” PM Sargsyan said.

In early 1970-ies, when usage of chloro-organic pesticides was banned in Armenia, burial appeared as an urgent problem. 10 years later, about 500 tons of outdated pesticides were buried in a territory near Bagratashen settlement. While the environmentalists were sounding alarm and the Armenian Nature Protection Ministry was looking for donor organizations to get funds for clean-up, engineering equipment was brought into the territory, digging the upper layer of the site and spreading the weed and pest-killer chemicals throughout it.

A criminal case was initiated. Those guilty have not been found yet.