November 19, 2013
“Dirty history” which lasted for nearly 40 years is doted. “In this year the decision about the closure of the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill (BPPM) can be called an indubitable major environmental victory of Russia and of the whole word,” – today said the Minister of natural resources and ecology (MNR) S. Donskoy on the Public Council under MNR meeting. According to him remediation measures and environmental renovation of the Baikal natural territory started in 2013 are pilot projects. Within 40 years life time of the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill there were ecological problems on the lakeside.
The Minister noted MNR pays greater attention to remediation measures within the territory of the Russian Federation. To date their legal frameworks have been developed: draft of the Federal Targeted Programme “Liquidation of accumulated environmental damage” and the bill “On making changes in some legislative acts of the Russian Federation in regulation of the issues to compensate (to eliminate) environmental damage including connected with the past economic activity”.
As explained by S. Donskoy: “These documents contain the legal, organizational and financial mechanisms the realization of which is necessary for rehabilitation of damaged environments. In addition it is the first time in the industrial history of Russia when responsibilities of state and business for works aimed at environmental damage assessment and nature rehabilitation have been defined and formalized in legislation”.
At the same time MNR continues implement pilot projects to test the environmental control technology in different regions of the country. According to the Head of the Ministry of natural resources and ecology in 2013 the was carried out in 11 environmental “hot spots” where the accumulated pollution is not only adversely affect environment but also is the real environmental threat. In autumn of the current year three-year environmental remedial actions was completed on the Franz Josef Land Archipelago (clean-up cost was $43 million), in the Russian territory and on Spitsbergen ($3.1 million), on the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago ($3.9 million), land rehabilitation in the estuary of Pechora river (Arctic zone, $0.5 million).
Works on elimination of the “White Sea” slurry reservoir, the “Black Hole” industrial waste landfill, the Igumnovo municipal solid waste landfill and on-site treatment of Anderma village in the Nenets Autonomous Area, environmental remedial actions in the territory of the Dzhidinsky tungsten-molybdenum mining and processing enterprise are being continued.
“Technologies have been tested on above-mentioned projects, will be further used for the implementation of the Federal Targeted Programme “Liquidation of accumulated environmental damage,” – summed up S. Donskoy.