YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 2, NOYAN TAPAN. No monitoring of underground waters has been done in Armenia for the past 14 years. Whereas, as T. Lennarts, Technical Director of the USAID Water Program, told reporters on February 2, 90% of drinking water in the country comes from underground sources. T. Lennarts, who had participated in the seminar "Control of Underground Water Resources Monitoring in Armenia" on the same day, said that along with developing the Armenian economy, the RA government decided to deal with the problem of controlling the underground waters monitoring: a Hydrogeological Monitoring Center has been founded. According to him, about 100 thousand dollars will be allocated for monitoring every year, and the USAID is going to assist with this. The RA Deputy Minister of Nature Protection Hakob Matilian noted that in the 1990s, the monitoring of underground waters was stooped in Armenia because of lack of financial resources. Yet, in his words, some work in this direction was done last year, particularly, studies of deep wells were conducted in two marzes. The deputy minister said that the main purpose of a monitoring is to determine the amount of underground water resources and their quality in the country. By previous data, these resources amounted to 3 billion cubic meters. 3 billion cubic meters of water is consumed annually in Armenia, with underground waters making 1-1.5 million cubic meters. H. Matilian also informed those present that a cooperation agreement will be signed with the USAID with the aim of controlling the monitoring, which will last about 3 years.

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