By polluting Okhchuchay, Armenia violates Helsinki Convention on transboundary water basins

Copper- molybdenum plant has been operating in Gajaran city, the southern province of Armenia, and ore processing plant has been operating in Gafan city since Soviet times. All we know the Soviet economic system: there was no serious attention given to neither environmental protection nor human health protection in planned economics. But Armenia has been withdrawn from the USSR for 30 years and declared itself independent country. However, there is no difference between this country and the USSR. It continues to violate all the international conventions by polluting Okhchuchay transboundary river with heavy metals and committing environmental terror against Azerbaijan.

The UN Economic Commission for Europe adopted the convention “On the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes” (Helsinki Convention) in Helsinki, the capital of Finland 30 years ago, namely in March 1992. There were the alterations made in the Convention
“On the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes” at the meeting of the Commission held in Madrid city in November 2003 and it was considered acceptable for all the UN member states to join this convention.

By the decision of Milli Majlis, supreme legislative body of the Republic of Azerbaijan adopted in March 2000, the country joined Helsinki Convention. Unfortunately, Armenia, which calls itself democratic state, has not became a party to mentioned convention for the past 30 years. It is no accident. The facts prove this. We can observe it as in the case of polluting Okhchuchay transboundary river with heavy metals on the territory of Armenia.

The matter is that Armenia uses Okhchuchay river as a collector. Waste water rich with heavy metals formed within the production process at Gajaran copper and molybdenum plant and Gafan ore processing plant, located in the south of the country, are discharged directly into the river without any cleaning. Throwing of heavy metals into Okhchuchay by that exceed standard limits by several times, not only destroys the river fauna and ecosystem, but is also very dangerous for the human health.

The river head of 83 km long Okhchuchay river is located in Gapijig mountain (3285 m) of Zangazur range. Major part of the river is located in Sunik region of Armenia (historical region of Azerbaijan called Zangazur). Its lower bed flows through the territory of Zangilan region liberated from Armenian occupation into Araz river that is the second largest river in the South Caucasus. At the same time, being the largest right tributary of Kura river, Araz river is another transboundary river passing through the territory of Armenia and plays crucial role in irrigating arable lands of Azerbaijan. However due to serious changes in the quality of water in the river, its use for household and agricultural needs is able to lead to extremely negative effects.

Starting from 1993 it was impossible to conduct the monitoring on Okhchuchay river, because the river was located on the territory of Zangilan region, Azerbaijan, occupied by Armenia. It became possible for the specialists of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources (MENR) to conduct the monitoring in the river only after 27 years (in 2020), when the territories of Azerbaijan had been liberated from the occupation of Armenian military units. This monitoring revealed terrible facts.

High content of heavy metals, especially copper, molybdenum, manganese, iron, zinc and chromium, were found in the water samples taken from Okhchuchay in January-June 2021. Pursuant to the monitoring reports of MENR, the content of the copper- molybdenum compound in the river was two, of iron – four and nickel – seven times higher than standard limits. The colour of the river periodically changed due to the pollution.

In order to attract the attention of international community to the matter related to ecological disaster in the river, Azerbaijan had to appeal to the authoritative laboratories of foreign countries. The analysis of the water and bottom deposits samples from the river was conducted at the request of MENR by internationally accredited and certified SGS laboratory (Germany). The test results of the water samples revealed high content of heavy metals, especially iron, copper, manganese, molybdenum, zinc, chromium, nickel, etc. in the waters of the river surface. It even revealed that the content of hazardous substances in the deposit samples exceeded standard limits several times, and the river pollution level was found to be critical.

Araz river, as well Kura river are widely used in the irrigation of agricultural lands in Azerbaijan. At the same time, the water of Kura river is used for providing with drinking water not only the surrounding regions, but also many territories of Baku city, the capital of Azerbaijan. This is extremely dangerous for the human health. The use of such the water is able to lead to very harmful complications, such as digestive disorders, destructive processes in the kidneys and bone tissue, cardiovascular, nervous and circulatory systems diseases.
In other words, environmental terror against Azerbaijan pursued by Armenia nowadays remains a source of the danger that is able to seriously affect not only the flora and fauna of the country, but also the gene pool of the country.

Therefore, Azerbaijan already beats the alarm related to the fact of environmental terror by Armenia in the region. Because the fact that Armenia has not yet joined Helsinki Convention proves that this country shall further continue environmental terror in the region. We hope that international organizations, as well public organizations engaged in the protection of the environment all over the world, shall finally hear fair appeal of Azerbaijan.