Yerevan City Hall to increase fines for construction pollution

YEREVAN, AUGUST 28, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan City Hall considers introducing higher fines for contractors failing to ensure appropriate prevention measures against construction dust pollution.

Gorik Avetisyan, Deputy Director of the Environmental Department at City Hall, told Armenpress that the fine must be comparable with the expenses directed at construction dust control.

Mayor Tigran Avinyan has instructed city officials to develop a new binding standard for construction companies to ensure dust barriers at construction sites. Furthermore, the City Hall’s legal department has been tasked with defining the new fines.

“We believe that the current fine is very low and we need to increase it so that it becomes comparable with the expenses that the construction company ought to do to install air quality monitoring devices or the barriers; so that they don’t think that getting fined would cost less compared to carrying out the work properly,” Avetisyan explained.

By law, construction sites must have dust control barriers. Construction companies must also water the construction site, wash the tires of vehicles before exiting the site, and comply with other similar preventive rules. Currently the fines for failing to comply with the regulations are set up to 150,000 drams and up to 300,000 for second offense.