Mining Innovation: OSCE provides pollution monitoring equipment to American University of Armenia

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http://www.mininginnovationnews.com/2015/05/21/osce-provides-pollution-monitoring-equipment-to-american-university-of-armenia/

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has donated mobile toxic pollution testing equipment and supplies to the American University of Armenia’s (AUA) Center for Responsible Mining.

The equipment will be used to collect data that will detect and report on health risks from local mining activities and inform citizens of the situation.

Dr Armen Der Kiureghian, the president of the university, received the heavy metal soil analysis equipment, photometers, water analysis instruments as well as additional kits for both soil and water analysis.

The monitoring project has been funded from a crowdsourcing initiative, organised by ONEArmenia to allow the AUA Center for Responsible Mining to conduct independent monitoring of toxic heavy metal pollution from the country’s mining industry.

In November the scheme raised $31,000 from 300 donors and met a total figure of $76,000 to launch the project.

Additional partners include the British Embassy Yerevan, the United Nations Development Programme and the US Ambassador.

During the next year, the AUA Center for Responsible Mining is set to target communities and studies in five to eight areas with the first studies expected to begin within the next month.