OSCE Provides Environmental Equipment to the American University of Armenia

On May 21, 2015, Ambassador Andrey Sorokin, Head of the OSCE Office in Yerevan, donated mobile toxic pollution testing equipment and supplies to the Center for Responsible Mining of the American University in Armenia (AUA). The latter is an indispensable tool for collecting data that will inform affected citizens about their health risks and ways to manage them.

Dr. Armen Der Kiureghian, President of the American University of Armenia, received the equipment, which includes a heavy metals soils analyser, photometers, water analysis instrument, additional kits for soil analysis and water samplers and additional kits for water analysis.

The equipment is part of a bigger project – crowdfunding campaign organized by ONE Armenia in October 2014. The aim was to enable the AUA Center for Responsible Mining to conduct independent monitoring of communities for toxic heavy-metal pollution resulting from mining and mineral processing in Armenia. 

It is expected that within “Let’s Protect Armenia from Toxic Pollution” ONE Armenia project AUA will start conducting targeted studies and community-wide assessments in 5-8 communities starting in June 2015.