Over nine years, one company from a village went from building a state-subsidized cattle barn to operating an unlicensed asphalt plant, and finally attempted to establish a cement production facility just a mile from Lake Sevan. An investigation by Hetq, combined with the Ministry of Environment's recent decision, together show how weak oversight and legislative gaps nearly allowed a hazardous industrial facility to be built next to one of Armenia's most sensitive ecosystems.

Timeline

• 2017. Tsovagyugh resident Arman Meloyan founds "Sani Lend" LLC, registering its activity as grain-crop cultivation.
• 2018. The company acquires a 7,378-square-meter plot on the 7th–8th kilometer of the Sevan–Dilijan highway, near Tsovagyugh.
• 2021. "Sani Lend" LLC signs a contract with the Ministry of Economy, committing to build a "smart" Model-3 livestock barn for 40–45 head of cattle. Of the project's 35-million-dram cost, the state covers 17.5 million. That November, the company receives a construction permit; but because the law in effect at the time did not require an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for asphalt plants, the project went through only a "simplified review," without public hearings.
• 2023. Satellite imagery shows an asphalt plant (“Kobesh Machine AS-160”) appearing on the site this year. At the same time, official Cadastre Committee records continue to list the plot as undeveloped land with no registered structure.
• 2024. Hetq first reports on Sani Lend's livestock barn. That same year, the company finally registers its plot as industrial/production land.
• September 17, 2025. Following public hearings in Tsovagyugh, Sevan's community head, Sargis Muradyan, signs approval for Sani Lend's EIA report on establishing a mineral dust, gypsum, and cement production facility on the same site. The planned facility was to have a capacity of up to 90 tons per day.
• By this point, Ministry of Economy monitoring had already found that Sani Lend had not used the barn for its intended purpose; the Ministry begins preparing a lawsuit to recover the 17.5 million drams in state support.
• July 24, 2026. Following Hetq's inquiries, the Ministry of Environment publishes a revised EIA report — this time including the unlicensed asphalt plant, which had been absent from the original version. Prior to this, the Ministry had confirmed to Hetq that no EIA conclusion had ever been issued for the asphalt plant, and the Urban Development, Technical and Fire Safety Inspection Body confirmed it had never inspected the site — the plant wasn't even listed in the registry of hazardous industrial facilities.
• August 10, 2026. A second round of public hearings on the cement production EIA is held in Tsovagyugh. The following day, village administrative head Atom Simonyan tells Hetq the discussion was calm and residents had no objections. The official minutes tell a different story: an expert from the EIA Expert Center SNCO, Astghik Vardanyan, recorded a number of deficiencies that the company's representative, Gohar Grigoryan, could not answer. The negative opinions of the National Academy of Sciences' Lake Sevan Protection Commission and the Center for Zoology and Hydroecology were disregarded. Commission member Kamo Aghababyan stressed that the report should be rejected outright, since Article 10 of the Law on Lake Sevan explicitly prohibits building mineral-processing facilities within the lake's zone of direct impact.
• August 28, 2026. Hetq publishes its investigative article, detailing the company's history, the legal inconsistencies around the plot's status, and its alleged ties to Tsovagyugh's former community head, Vahram Gevorgyan, and the road-construction firm "Tsovagyugh ChSHSh."
• September 18, 2026. The Ministry of Environment publishes the results of its review of Sani Lend's mineral dust, gypsum, and cement production report. The state environmental impact expertise issues a negative conclusion. The project, at least in this form, is halted.
   

Why This Case Matters

Legally, it shows how a permit obtained under older legislation (the "simplified review" that didn't require an EIA for asphalt plants in 2021) could be used to bypass today's stricter rules for years. The plant had been operating since at least 2023 without ever being inspected, while official cadastral records formally showed no structure there at all.

Environmentally, the decisive factor was Article 10 of the Law on Lake Sevan, which categorically bans mineral-processing facilities within the lake's zone of direct impact. As both the National Academy's Lake Sevan Protection Commission and the Center for Zoology and Hydroecology pointed out, even "dry" cement production would generate silicate dust and nitrogen and sulfur oxide emissions — right next to the Sevan National Park. The Ministry's final negative conclusion, in effect, confirmed exactly what the scientific commissions had been saying since August.

Economically, the case exposes weak oversight of state subsidies: the 17.5-million-dram "smart barn" was never used for its intended purpose, and it took years — and monitoring — before recovery proceedings began. Meanwhile, the same company was an active participant in public procurement and held contracts with various state bodies, including the Prime Minister's staff. In the end, the Sani Lend case remains an important reminder of how fragile environmental protection can be when oversight depends largely on investigative journalism and public pressure rather than systematic monitoring. 

This time, Lake Sevan was spared a new threat. How many similar cases remain undiscovered is an open question.

Sources: 
https://hetq.am/hy/article/183583
https://environment.gov.am/api/assets/94fd4d24-c92f-4e0b-9b18-931111676214
https://www.arlis.am/hy/acts/891
https://hetq.am/hy/article/184030