InternationalDebed Valley is contaminated
Published: Friday July 24, 2009
Fresno - Sir:
It is troubling that Tatul Hakobyan's article, "Visiting the Debed River's Fertile Valley," (July 11, 2009) fails to mention that the Debed is one of the most contaminated rivers in the Central Caucasus.
The sources of the river's industrial contamination, which are responsible for the accumulation of heavy metals throughout the river's basin, can be directly attributed to uncontrolled discharges from a chemical factory and a metallurgical plant in Lori Province.
Farmers continue to use water from the Debed to irrigate their crops, which in some cases have been tested to contain 50 times the admissible levels of copper, zinc, magnesium, iron, and other very dangerous substances.
It is no surprise that the Armenian Ministry of Health has confirmed unusually high incidences of cancer in the Lori region. According to the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture, nearly 55,000 hectares of Armenia's precious farmland is similarly contaminated.
Fortunately, through funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and under the leadership of the State Agrarian University of Armenia, for the past three years we have been able to demonstrate that not only can toxic heavy metal accumulation be virtually eliminated from the soil using a combination of inexpensive, locally available organic amendments (zeolite, tufa, and compost), but in many cases crop yields can be increased as much as 150 percent.
This is the real story that you need to communicate to your readers and to the nearly 400,000 individuals living in the river's basin.
Very truly yours,
Bill Erysian, Ph.D.
Fresno, Calif.
The writer is coordinator, Grants & International Projects, Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences & Technology, at California State University, Fresno.
