Ararat, Armenia
Encyclopedia
Ararat is a city in Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...

 in the province of Ararat
Ararat (province)
Ararat is a province of Armenia with capital in Artashat. Named after Mount Ararat, the province borders Turkey to the west and Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to the south...

, about 42 km northwest of Yerevan
Yerevan
Yerevan is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously-inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and industrial center of the country...

.

The Ararat Cement
Ararat Cement
Ararat Cement Factory CJSC is one of two companies in Armenia which produce cement. It is owned by Gagik Tsarukian's Multi Group Concern. Founded in 1927 during the Soviet era near the present-day town of Ararat, and continued as a state owned company until 2002 when it was privatized and sold to...

 Factory has been opened in 1927 along with small apartments to accommodate the workers. In 1935, it was incorporated with the village of Davalu. In 1939 the town of Ararat was officially established. In 1957.

Today in the city of has two major factories: the cement factory and the Ararat Gold Recovery Company. The ecology of the city is in danger due to emissions of cement dust and cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....

 from the gold manufacturing plants. In the summer of 2005, the impurity of the atmosphere was recorded to be 9.6 times the acceptable norm.

Controversy over the Ararat Gold Recovery Company

Besides the various enterprises based on the manufacturing of building materials, the city is also home to the Ararat Gold Recovery Company (AGRC) which extracts gold from the raw ore sent from the gold mine in Sotk
Sotk
Sotk is a town in the Gegharkunik Province of Armenia.-History:At the end of the 19th century Zod was a village with 1100 Tatar inhabitants . It grew into a town during the region's industrialization in the 1960 and 1970s, primarily due to the exploitation of the Zod gold mines. There is now a...

 which is 20 kilometers east of Lake Sevan
Lake Sevan
Lake Sevan is the largest lake in Armenia and the Caucasus region. It is one of the largest high-altitude lakes in the world.Lake Sevan is situated in the central part of the Republic of Armenia, inside the Gegharkunik Province, at the altitude of 1,900m above sea level...

. About 0.46 grams of gold is extracted from each ton of sand unearthed at the mines. The extraction process involves first pulverizing the raw material, and then filtering out the gold using a cyanide nitrate chemical process.

The soupy byproduct of the cyanide nitrate chemical process is both toxic and radioactive and collects in a tailings dam. There have been numerous incidents of animals dying near and around the plant's area. Also, within the years 2003 and 2008, there have been at least 10 accidents at the plant, some of which have resulted in the discharge of the cyanide soup into neighboring agricultural lands and fisheries, killing off cows and fish stock.
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