Translated material
Nuclear fission
Sergei Kiriyenko fired the head of the Mayak chemical plant
The first professional conflict that he had to face as head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency was resolved not in favor of nuclear workers by Sergei Kiriyenko, but in favor of the prosecutor’s office. On Wednesday, he signed an order to remove Vitaly Sadovnikov, general director of Mayak PA, from his position. The reason for the dismissal was the charges brought against the head of this notorious flagship of the nuclear industry by the department of the Prosecutor General's Office in the Ural Federal District.Last spring, the supervisory authority opened a criminal case regarding environmental pollution as a result of the activities of the Mayak chemical plant. Mr. Sadovnikov attributed the poor ecology in the area of the enterprise to the consequences of Soviet-era accidents and the lack of government policy in solving the problem. But the department of the Prosecutor General's Office found facts of more recent violations of the rules for handling environmentally hazardous industrial waste. According to prosecutors, between 2001 and 2004, several tens of millions of cubic meters of liquid radioactive waste produced by Mayak were dumped into the Techa River basin. Vitaly Sadovnikov was charged under Art. 246 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“violation of environmental protection rules during the production of work”) and Art. 247 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“violation of the rules for handling environmentally hazardous substances and waste”). The Chelyabinsk Regional Court lifted his parliamentary immunity (Mr. Sadovnikov is a member of the legislative assembly of the Southern Urals), and in March, by decision of the Leninsky District Court of Yekaterinburg, Mr. Sadovnikov was removed from his position.
Lawyers for the director of Mayak did not agree with this court verdict and sent a cassation appeal to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court. And in this situation, the leader of the accused, Sergei Kiriyenko, unexpectedly for Chelyabinsk residents, took the side of the prosecutor’s office and supported the decision of the court of first instance. Unexpectedly because after last year’s visit of Mr. Kiriyenko to Chelyabinsk and his visit to Mayak, the South Ural elite considered the head of Rosenergoatom an ally of Vitaly Sadovnikov. However, now Mr. Sadovnikov is in the closed city of Ozersk, where the plant is located, under recognizance not to leave, which is why he was no longer able to take part in one meeting of the regional legislative assembly. According to him, so far everything is fine and there is no reason to be nervous.
Meanwhile, taking into account the charges brought against the director of Mayak, the administration of the Chelyabinsk region itself has intensified work to improve the environmental situation in the area of the nuclear plant. The first vice-governor of the region, Vladimir Dyatlov, held a closed meeting with the leadership of Gazprom, at which he discussed the prospects for the participation of financiers in the construction of the South Ural nuclear power plant. In parallel with the completion of the nuclear power plant, mothballed after the Chernobyl disaster, officials hope to use part of the funds for the rehabilitation of areas affected by the activities of Mayak. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to create a working group that will address the issue of resuming construction of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant. Chairman of the Board of Gazprombank Andrei Akimov has already stated that “the bank’s specialists are ready to take part in joint work to determine the feasibility of constructing the South Ural Nuclear Power Plant.” At the end of April, Sergei Kiriyenko is again expected in Chelyabinsk, from whom information should come about the future of this large-scale construction project that can solve the environmental problem.