Russian arctic
An ore beneficiation plant claims that its tanks have overflowed. An opposition newspaper claims that the rejection was voluntary.
Russian mining giant Nornickel reported a wastewater discharge at one of its ore beneficiation plants in the Arctic on Sunday, a month after unprecedented oil pollution in the same region.
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According to a press release published on the Nornickel website, the incident concerns the Talnakh enrichment plant, located near the Arctic city of Norilsk. The sewage, used to process minerals extracted from the region, “spilled from a reservoir” on Sunday and spilled into the wild, the company said. The release was then “stopped” by plant staff and poses “no threat of waste leakage,” according to Nornickel.
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The services of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations on the spot, quoted by the public agency Ria Novosti, however, raised the risk of contamination of the nearby Kharaïakh River by toxic substances. The Russian Investigation Committee confirmed in a statement an “unauthorized discharge of liquid waste into the tundra area” near Talnakh and announced the opening of an investigation.
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Willful rejection on purpose?
The opposition newspaper Novaïa Gazeta, for its part, claimed that the factory deliberately discharged wastewater into the wild and published images of the area. According to its local correspondents, Nornickel employees hastily dismantled the discharge pipes when investigators and emergency services arrived on site. A spokeswoman for Nornickel, Tatiana Egorova, confirmed to AFP that the employees of the factory had taken the decision to “reject purified water from the tank” and that an internal investigation was under way.
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According to the Russian environmental control agency Rosprirodnadzor, factory personnel made this decision following “heavy rainfall”, which caused a “sharp increase in the water level in the settling tank”. To “avoid possible emergency situations”, the employees decided to “discharge purified industrial water to the adjacent area” in the wild.
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President Vladimir Putin then declared a state of emergency in this region of the Russian Arctic rich in minerals and coal. Authorities said on June 17 that they had completed surface cleanup of the pollution, although full cleanup may take “years”.
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(AFP)
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