Health or Doubtful Wealth ?

Is uranium actually dangerous for health? Well, if you are there in Russia in comfortable head-office of the mining company and mine is here in Armenia then, you can relax, your health is not endangered.

Now, the bad news: According to US Environmental Protection Agency: ''The greatest health risk from large intakes of uranium is toxic damage to the kidneys, because, uranium is not only weakly radioactive but also toxic. Uranium exposure, because of radioactivity of the metal, increases risk of getting a cancer. Since, uranium tends to concentrate in specific locations in the body, risk of cancer of the bone, liver cancer, and blood diseases (such as leukemia) are increasing. Inhaled uranium increases the risk of lung cancer''.

What happens during and after mining? The waste, left behind as the result of digging up and crushing the rock, is a radioactive dust, called uranium tailing. According to Marie Curie "85 percent of the radioactivity in the ore remains behind in that crushed rock". Moreover, after it has taken the form of a dust, it's free to travel with the wind or underground waters. And guess who is going to be visited with this dust first ?

Armenia is relatively small country, how rational is it to take a risk of letting in such a "visitor" ?

Economically Beneficial ??

There are several ecological concerns about possible uranium exploration and mining near Kapan and in other areas of Armenia. Among the threats related to uranium mining are health hazards and unrecoverable environmental damage:  which cannot be justified by any short-term benefits.

Those supporting the project find it to be economically beneficial for Armenia. But is it ? History shows that any sort of mining brings profits in the short term but what it will bring in the longer term depends on first, how those resources are spent and second, weather they have unrecoverable consequences that might rise in the future. Given the current corruption level the benefits are doubtful and the right question would be: is it fair to trade the clean environment and health of future generations with the profit WE will get today by mining?

Talking about our future, let us have a look at  National Competitiveness Foundation of Armenia Website (http://www.cf.am/ ).  We'll see that the four strategic areas for economic development Armenia’s competitive advantage are   Education, Healthcare, Tourism, Networks. Thus it is important to concentrate efforts on development of Human Resources and nature protection in Armenia. However, developing mining activities in Syunik  does not contribute to this strategy. Moreover, it undermines possible successful development of the region, as well as the whole country by damaging the ecology, the people's health, lowering the quality of life and endangering tourism. And these all to be sacrificed just for additional one thousand work places ? In mining sector ?!

We believe that the time has come to start  THINKING LONG-TERM and to  understand, that strategy is about trade-offs:  We just CAN'T  have uranium mine there, where We want to develop tourism (and tourism where we want to develop  uranium mine J ).

You might call us dreamers but we really hope that the current state of our country and capabilities of our human resources are not that bad for us to start, simply, trading our soil for bread and Armenia still has a chance …  

Kapan vs. Uranium Mine: The Beginning …

11,000 signatures against, 3,000 rallying to stop it, 1 open letter sent to the president of Armenia Serge Sargsyan signed by 10 NGOs. Only 300 meters from Lernadzor and just 18 km from Kapan.  1 region versus 1 company. These are yet the numbers behind the story of uranium mine explorations in Lernadzor village (population of 416 ) near Kapan city (population of 45,500).

Armenia.Now writes ''Armenian-Russian Mining Organization” CJSC has the monopoly of uranium resources research and uranium mines exploitation in the whole territory of Armenia. The research works started on August 5, 2009, and they will last until August 23, 2014. The permission granted to the company by the RA Ministry of Natural Protection, has not passed public hearings, even though in 2001 Armenia ratified the Aarhus Convention, defining participation of the public in issues of ecological concern.''

According to Ministry of Energy and Recourses ''Only prospecting work is being carried out today. Then, there will be geological work, drilling activities should be conducted to see if uranium is present there and in what quantities''.

While population and the governors of the city are against any explorations and the people in Lernadzor are even considering leaving their houses if the project gets a ‘‘go’’, there seems to be no dialogue between those directly affected and those who make decisions on the matter.

Yet, we know  that natural recourses of Armenia should belong to people and we believe our voice should make a difference. Here we'd like to share our concerns on beginning of the process for uranium mining in Kapan area and open a floor for discussions.

Those engaged, what's your story?