Wet residue

The benzene spot does not want to leave Khabarovsk

Yesterday, the concentration of nitrobenzene near Khabarovsk water intakes dropped to 0.11 of the maximum permissible concentration of this dangerous substance. The front of the pollution zone has descended 115 km below Khabarovsk and is now located near the Amur village of Malyshevo. According to the Far Eastern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, the spot will not leave the city limits on the evening of December 27, as expected, but only on the 29th. This is due to the fact that the speed of movement of the infection zone has decreased significantly - from 40 to 25 km per day.

The situation in Khabarovsk remains calm. There are no interruptions in water supply in the city. As explained by Vladimir Steblevsky, General Director of MUP Vodokanal, Amur water undergoes three stages of purification using carbon filters and coal dust, which is added at the last stage of filtration. Such a thorough cleaning costs the city treasury approximately 1 million rubles. daily. However, according to the head of the emergency commission, Vladimir Popov, water in Khabarovsk will be purified with coal for at least another year. Experts do not rule out that dangerous chemical compounds have settled to the bottom and on the ice shell of the Amur River and will continue to poison the river water for a long time. Due to the high risk of recurrence of accidents at chemical plants similar to the one in Jilin, the governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, Viktor Ishaev, on December 26 ordered to consider the possibility of building a technological line for the production of activated carbon in Khabarovsk.

Meanwhile, the Chinese delivered about a thousand more tons of activated carbon to the Khabarovsk Territory on Monday. According to the Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Khabarovsk, Fan Xianrong, this cargo is part of the humanitarian assistance of the Chinese authorities to the Russian regions affected by the accident at the chemical plant in Jilin. However, as Ivan Sych, head of the regional department for civil defense and emergency situations, told reporters, Chinese free coal does not meet Russian standards, since it is granular. It can only be used for rough, very rough purification of river water. For the needs of the Khabarovsk water intake, the regional authorities purchase powdered coal in Perm. So the construction of the plant could significantly defuse the situation and contribute to a more thorough filtration of Amur water.

Currently, reserves of powdered coal at the region’s water intakes reach 600 tons. Moreover, emergency services transfer most of the coal to Amursk and Komsomolsk-on-Amur, whose residents, like Khabarovsk residents, drink water from the Amur. According to experts' calculations, the front line of the pollution zone will reach the city of Amursk on January 2-3, and Komsomolsk-on-Amur on January 4-5, 2006. Along with the reserves of activated carbon, permanent hydrological observation posts are also being transferred to the central regions of the Khabarovsk Territory. In the next day or two, the forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and hydrological scientists will monitor the progress of the spot towards the city of youth and Amursk in three new laboratories near the Lower Amur villages: Troitskoye, Malmyzh and Voznesenskoye.

Ilya SERGEEV, Khabarovsk region