ALTER’s Armenia team carried out an introductory visit to the Akhtala (Project Site #1).. The main objective of the team’s visit was to meet with the head of Akhtala consolidated community, Mr. A. Tamazyan, and the administration of “Akhtala Mining and Processing Enterprise”, Mr. L. Vardanyan. The goal of the visit was to introduce the project, discussion its objectives, outline the expectations and outcomes. Additionally, a short visit to visit the tailing dumps located in the community.
After an initial introduction to the project, team members heard from the head of the Akhtala community who lamented that the community is not well informed on the situation with tailing dumps beyond a general knowledge that a failure will lead to catastrophic environmental outcomes. The project was highly welcomed by the head of the community who was very willing to support the project as it falls in line with a broader mandatory responsibility of communities to participate in Armenia’s broader DRM strategy.
After meeting with the community head, team members met with the Safety Engineer of the Mining and Processing Enterprise. Unfortunately due to outside circumstances, the Director of Akhtala Mining and Processing Enterprise was not able to be present. Team members told him about the purpose of the visit, introduced the project and asked him to accompany them for a short visit to the “Nahatak’’ tailing dump.
All of the visited parties agreed to host the other ALTER parties as a part of the upcoming June visit.
