SOS! The Bank of the Arpa River is Closed to Build HPP (video)

This morning we received a call from Jermuk, that the bank of the Arpa river was closed by means of heavy equipment and a Hydroelectric Power Plant is going to be built. Two weeks ago “Jermuk Development Center” NGO officially wrote the Ministry of Environmental Protection and there is no answer until this day. Journalist Tehmine Yenoqyan called hot line of the Ministry of Environmental Protection, but she was advised to apply to Water Resources Inventory.
The questions were: Which organization promotes activity, the area of Arpa River which is on the upper area of Kechut reservoir is part of hydrological reserve, which has 17 thousand hectares area? Where are the legal grounds? Were any social hearings held, as the citizens of Jermuk don’t know about it?
In Water Resources Inventory they said, “Maybe they have the right and permission to promote such an activity”, and promised to answer in case of official application.
After the second call to the Ministry of Environmental Protection the call was registered and they promised to inform Inspection of Environmental Protection of Vayots Dzor to clarify the matter there.
Vahik Grigoryan, regional head of Vayots Dzor department of Ministry of Environmental Protection said,
“I don’t remember the name of the organization, they had these program 5 years ago, and are realizing it just now and it is not in hydrological reserve area, the area of hydrological reserve ends on the upper part.” After that he promised to call and answer the questions mentioned above.
But before that the bank of Arpa River was closed.