EcoLur
The residents of Sayat Nova Community, Ararat Region, who are experiencing serious problems with irrigation and drinking water, have started a signature collection in order to apply to the Armenian Government with a demand to recover their violated right to water. The letter says:
“Dear Mr. Prime Minister and Cabinet members,
“We, the residents of Sayat Nova Community are applying for the restitution of our violated rights to water. We have been deprived of our fundamental right – access to water. The community is experiencing problems with drinking and irrigation water, which is conditioned with the disturbance of the artesian groundwater balance, reduction in surface water flows, reduction in water horizons, soil superhumidity, salination, drying out of springs, activation of desertification and decrease in agriculture. As a result, a disastrous socio-ecological situation has been established for 1893 residents.
Drinking water problem
The village doesn’t have an intra-community water network: the community is using the water of artesian wells for drinking and household purposes, which has lost its quantitative and qualitative indicators over the recent 10-15 years. The intra-community network of the drinking water urgently needs repairing.
In the community development program for 2017-2021, we have planned construction of drinking aqueducts with the projected value of 300 million AMD, nevertheless, the narrow budget of the community doesn’t afford the performance of such works.
Irrigation water
Because of ruthless use of water for fish breeding, the level of artesian wells has decreased and the water amount has decreased. The personal land areas are irrigation with ground water available in the land areas: 130 ha of cultivated land areas in Sayat-Nova Community have a problem with the irrigation water.
Since 2018 the irrigation of 60 ha land areas in Sayat-Nova community has been carried out with the outlet water of “Masis-Dzuk” fish farm from 7 points. This initiative has been funded by the UNDP 'Advanced Science & Partnerships for Integrated Resource Development (ASPIRED) Project', the Fund for Armenian Relief, and the Small and Medium Entrepreneurship Development National Center of Armenia (SME DNC). Nevertheless, the limited budget of the project didn’t enable solving the problem with the irrigation water in a complete manner: around 25 million AMD is needed to accomplish the construction of the aqueduct.
We are applying to the Armenian government for the state support to solve the water problems in the community in the form of allocations from state reserves. At the same time, we are asking you to assign Health and Employment Inspection Body to examine the drinking water quality supplied to the community and to inform the community residents about its findings.”
This publication has been prepared within the frames of “Protect Your Right to Water” project with the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), whereas the opinions expressed or the content of the publications don’t necessarily represent the official views and opinions of USAID.
July 31, 2019 at 13:59