Land Reclamation Work Completed After Norilsk Accident

Land reclamation work has been completed after the accident in Norilsk. This was announced today at a meeting of the State Duma Committee on Ecology, dedicated to the interim results of the work to eliminate the consequences of the 2020 accident. Then more than 20 thousand tons of oil products were spilled, which caused significant damage to the Ambarnaya and Daldykan rivers, soil and vegetation. Rosprirodnadzor assessed the damage to the environment at 148 billion rubles. The Norilsk Nickel company paid 145.5 billion rubles.

As it was said at the meeting, environmental monitoring is regularly carried out in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. However,the issues of rehabilitation of the Ambarnaya and Daldykan rivers, which also suffered from the fuel spill, remain unresolved, not all work on the restoration of the rivers has been completed. This raised questions from the State Duma Committee on Ecology. According to its head Dmitry Kobylkin, only data on the conduct of survey work and writing a project for cleaning the Ambarnaya riverbed are received from the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

It was said at the meeting that another 59 billion will be directed to the restoration of fish resources. The corresponding agreement has already been signed with the Federal Agency for Fishery.

Rosprirodnadzor also drew the attention of Norilsk Nickel to the need for a serious modernization of its enterprises in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, which continue to harm the environment and do not meet the requirements of the legislation.

More than 60 billion rubles from the fine of Norilsk Nickel went to the liquidation of hazardous waste at the Krasny Bor landfill in the Leningrad Region, as well as the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill and the Usolyehimprom plant in the Irkutsk Region. These are the most ambitious accumulated damage facilities in the country. The Norilsk Nickel company has also invested more than 180 billion rubles in the environmental modernization of production, which allows reducing harmful emissions into the air.

In conclusion of the discussion, the position of the Committee was expressed on the need to provide for the possibility of using environmental payments in the Resolution of the Government to rehabilitate water bodies in order to eliminate the damage caused.