Why 10 billion Potanin will not save Norilsk

The whole country found out about the large -scale environmental disaster that happened on May 29 in Norilsk on June 3, only after the meeting with the participation of Vladimir Putin. The president tried to figure out in manual mode who did not notify who and whom and why the incident became known from social networks.

To date, diesel fuel spills were localized. All relevant departments of the Russian Federation are engaged in the liquidation of the accident: the Ministry of Emergencies and Rosprirodnadzor. On Friday, on the video, their leaders kept the answer to the president - in the company with the governor and the owner of the Norilsk Nickel Vladimir Potanin.

Potanin said that his company will pay all bills for 10 billion rubles. To someone this amount may seem space, but according to the results of last year, Norilskel will pay 88 billion rubles to its shareholders, almost a third of which will go to Interros Vladimir Potanin.

But this is not only a matter of money. The emergency regime, introduced by the President’s decision, allowed Norilsk for a short time to return to the Russian Federation. The pole of power in Monoger is a plant, and usually its power is much higher than that of the local and federal authorities.

I saw this with my own eyes in November, when I came to Norilsk on a business trip to prepare a publication about the miners who died in the mine. Then it became clear to me that technogenic accidents happen regularly here, just on the “big land” they don’t really hear about them, and the environmental disaster is simply the form of the existence of Norilsk, and not some separate event.

Alexey Knizhnikov

Head of the Environmental Responsibility of the Business of the "Wildlife" Business

“On May twenty-ninth there was information that the car crashed into a tank on the TPP-3 in Norilsk, then that the car was driving and caught fire because it drove through the spilled fuel. But in any case, it was reported that there was a fire, that everyone was extinguished and there was no damage to nature. And on the 31st early in the morning they sent me a message from Taimyr with a record, which shows that there was a colossal breakthrough of the tank with fuel.

I realized that this is a spill in a volume, which I had not to hear about before. We have good ties with the best rescuers of the country, this is a marine rescue service, I called their leadership and said that there was an environmental disaster, we need to fly out there. After that he contacted the ecologists of the Norilsk Nickel.

On the same night, the first rescuers from Murmansk flew to Norilsk, a real liquidation began when diesel fuel was already floating along the river. I had a hand in order for rescuers to go there promptly. They set up bonovic fences on the Daldykan River, near Lake Pyasino, very quickly and correctly, showed their skills. Their operational and proper work prevented the hit of a large amount of pollution into the lake itself. ”

It turns out that the real elimination of the consequences of the disaster began with the help of independent ecologists, and not the Norilsk Nickel itself and not even the Ministry of Emergencies.

It would be wrong to blame the plant in inept actions: in the end, they are not oil workers, and fuel spills are not their profile. But a big question

Why did they not immediately request large -scale assistance and why the murmansk rescuers called the ecologist of the scribes, and not the representative of Norilsk Nickel.

Fatigue of metal

On June five, for the first time in a long time in Norilsk, they looked at Vladimir Potanin. Not personally, of course - on TV. Few people in the city, and not everyone at the plant was seen live their master.

But many know what his guards and plane look like. Yachts, of course, do not enter Dudinka, they usually off the coast of France. The richest man in Russia does not even try to pretend that there may be something in common between him and people who spend their lives at the plant producing Nickel, Platin, Palladium.

Norilsk Nickel is one of the most profitable enterprises in the world in its sector. Low costs help. And they can be kept at a low level because the main investments were made before perestroika. The last major modernization was carried out in 1972, so that the wear of fixed assets has already exceeded 70%.

Directly at the TPP-3, the situation is a little better. Rostekhnadzor pointed out that in one of the causes of the accident there could be equipment wear, which was mostly dated 1980. Maybe the tank was damaged due to the fact that a melting permafrost swam under it, as they insist in the company. Or maybe just rusted. The commission will figure it out.

The need for large -scale reconstruction of Norilsk has been talked for a long time. The plant itself, mines, thermal power plants, communal networks - all this is Soviet, began to build under Stalin, finished under Brezhnev.

In the new century, two or three houses were built in Norilsk, and as they wear out, they are partially demolished or rebuilt, like houses in the Minecraft game. The pile under the entrance sank - the entrance was demolished. There was a nine -story house - it was rebuilt into a five -story. Until 2001, the entire residential and non-residential fund, all objects of socio-cultural and communal purposes were on the balance sheet of OJSC Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant named after A.P. Zavenyagin ".

In August 2001, the city administration and the plant issued a joint resolution “On the transfer of the Unified Municipal Education, the city of Norilsk housing fund, objects of socio-cultural heritage and communal and domestic purposes”.

Freed from social, Norilsk Nickel, of course, improved profitability.

He should definitely have enough money to maintain his own economy. But here, the principle of optimization of costs applies.

Rinat Fayzulin

Expert for the extraction and production of precious metals, the former deputy head of the information and analytical department of the Norilsk Nickel Economic Security Service

“The TPP-3 tanks, one of which broke through, about thirty years. They were built by the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant, which later became part of Norilsk Nickel. It was the last major construction at the plant.

After the departure of the last Red Director of Filatov and the transition of the plant to private hands, you can forget about planned preventive work.

Instead of major repairs, partial repairs are carried out. A few years ago, a major accident occurred at the Talnya TPP-2, hydrogen exploded there, there was one deceased.

Metals are getting tired, and pile foundations, too, and there were bells that there could be any accident. Previously, there were special caretakers of buildings and structures in Norilsk, these were engineers with a polytechnic education, they made sure that the foundation and piles were normal so that cracks did not appear.

Now there is nothing like that. The head of the city stated that they abolished the department that followed pile foundations. ”

The head of the city Rinat Akhmetchin is a former top manager of Norilsk Nickel, for all the time he did not have a single conflict with the leaders of the plant who receive giant prizes for “optimization”. On the contrary, the city administration helps to make a profit. For example, in 2019, the inhabitants of Norilsk discovered a granular slag under their feet, which was scattered as an anti -altogether on the roads.

Slag under the feet of the people

Ruslan Abdullaev

Head of the Norilsk Public Organization "My Home"

“When we saw what was happening, we immediately wrote to the prosecutor's office of the city of Norilsk. We received information from the Office of Rospotrebnadzor in the Krasnoyarsk Territory that the metallurgical slag of Norilsk Nickel GMK OJSC cannot be used as an anti -Glane agent on the territory of residential development, as they are waste of the second hazard class.

Then we found out that the granular slag used after its use is not disposed of in the manner prescribed by law and thereby pose a threat to significant harm to human health and the environment. ”

Well, that is, instead of displaying slag and spending its money on this, the plant also sells it to the city. Ideal scheme!

“In 2016, there was a spill from a tailing storage or pulp storage, this is also a waste of the plant. I then posted on my Facebook page a video with a description, Sergey Chernin reacted to my publication, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, ”continues Ruslan Abdulaev.

- Then the spill also occurred with hitting the Daldykan River, in the area where the thermal power station is located. Spills are constantly happening now.

Of course, the fuel first hit the river, and we immediately began to trumpet everywhere, wrote to the President of the Russian Federation. Now we are waiting in the city with great enthusiasm what will happen after this meeting, where the president is trying to understand what happened, he is forced to become a high-class engineer, an ecologist, and a technologist at the same time.

When the president criticized everyone who caught his eye, the same head of the TPP-3, Lipin, who, in my opinion, is more afraid of his leadership than the head of state, because these are the main employers.

The Commission on the Investigation of the Causes of the Environmental Catastrophe is headed by the head of the city of Rinat Akhmetchin, the former employee of the Norilsk Nickel himself.

Regarding the arrested chief of the workshop, here people even sign under the petition - they say, is it really limited to the arrest of this linear leader, who, incidentally, began to work only in January. And he himself became a hostage to this situation.

It is clear that it is beneficial for the management to keep such people who, if something happens, will not even be indignant, you can hang everything on them. Although, of course, he realized that he was obliged to properly fulfill his duties for the operation of a dangerous industrial facility, that the leadership would leave him extreme, but, of course, his detention and arrest is an excessive measure. ”

And again crimson rivers

The city really became the hostage of the Norilsk Nickel, people go on production waste as an anti -altogether, breathe sulfur dioxide, and no one reacts to their complaints.

The scale of emissions of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, Norilsk Nickel, became famous throughout the world.

But it was recently established by the Norilsk prosecutor’s office that “the transportation of sulfur Komova to the seaport of Dudinka is carried out by railway transport of the ZF [Zapolar branch] of PJSC Norilsk Nickel PJSC in open railway wagons, in embankments, which does not meet the requirements of the law.”

Imagine how many more amazing facts the prosecutor’s office, Rostekhnadzor and Rosprirodnazra can establish, if it is allowed? At least, the president’s order at the video conference on June 5 was about this.

And you can also study social networks and media archives. After all, the Daldykan River was not the first to become crimson. And not even a second time. It was just before that was not diesel fuel.

The reconstruction of the Talnakh processing factory increased the processing of ore from 7.7 million tons to 10 million. The old waste storage storage was filled, so a new one, near Lake Pyasino, was hastily built. But emergency straits occur there too.

“And before the accident at the CHP, the waste production of Norilsk Nickel fell into the river, everything was in disrepair,” says ecologist Alexei Knizhnikov. - Previous spills have already caused great damage to living organisms both in the river and in the lake. And the number decreased significantly, and the fish is so poisoned that there is a tough recommendation for fishermen: in no case is fish from this lake.

Now many individuals, especially in the river, of course, will die. A new blow is too serious, it remains to hope that the lesson will be extracted. ”

But I can’t share his optimism. People, of course, are not fish, they are better adapted to new environmental niches. And it does not matter how many billions will ultimately allocate Potanin.

Because this is a banal attempt to pay off from solving problems and return the city to the eternal insulation mode, which allows you to optimize costs and increase profits.

In Norilsk, they hope that after the liquidation of the spill, Potanin can leave the post of general director - nevertheless, this position also implies responsibility, including legal. To be the owner is much nicer and safer. And for the enterprise it would be much safer if they were led by a person living in Norilsk.