Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 26
By Umid Niayesh - Trend:
Iran's top official warned Armenia to halt polluting the Araz River.
Head of Department of Environment (DOE) Masoumeh Ebtekar told Sorkhab newspaper Feb. 26 that Iran has delivered its concerns about the industrial pollution of Araz River made by Armenia.
The rising pollution levels in the border river have been blamed mainly on the discharge of untreated sewage into the river water from an Armenia-based copper factory.
Armenia claimed it established a wastewater recycling plant beside the Zangezur copper factory earlier to prevent the river's pollution in February 2014, but the industrial pollution of river has continued.
The Araz is a river located in and along the countries of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. Its total length is 1,072 kilometers. Given its length and a basin that covers an area of 102,000 square kilometers, it is one of the largest rivers of the Caucasus.
It joins with the Kura River at the village of Sabirabad and then directly flows into the Caspian Sea.
More than 350 million cubic meters of chemically and biologically polluted water annually are injected into the river (without neutralization) from the territory of Armenia.
Heavy metals, phenols, oil products, radioactive and other harmful substances were observed in the water samples, Azerbaijani Environment and Natural Resources Ministry announced in 2007.
Armenian Zangezur Copper Molybdenum Combine, which produces some 40,000 tons of copper each year, is one of the main sources of the Araz River pollution.
Edited by CN