Give me money so it doesn't gurgle

Deputies are asking Dmitry Medvedev to give money for the construction of a chemical waste processing plant, which has been under construction for 15 years. Without it, the Krasny Bor training ground turns into a time bomb

People started talking about the fact that something needs to be done with the hazardous waste that accumulated in Krasny Bor, one and a half million tons, in the late 1980s. Deputies and environmentalists who visited the landfill were shocked: the entire periodic table was poured into open pits without processing or sorting. All this bubbled and gurgled, emitting a sickening smell that reached Kolpin, which is four kilometers from the chemical zone. In the early 90s, it was decided to build a hazardous waste processing plant. It has not yet been built, and toxins, like 40 years ago, are poured into pits.
In recent years, three large fires have occurred on the territory of the burial ground, the plume from which (in particular, in the summer of 2011) stretched to the center of St. Petersburg. Rospotrebnadzor and the Ministry of Emergency Situations assured that there was no excess of the maximum permissible concentration for substances, but in Kolpino residents felt unwell.
With the arrival of the new governor, the Greenpeace branch sent Georgy Poltavchenko a report on the situation at the test site. According to the greens, this site is one of the largest polluters of soil, air and water in the region. Studies of samples from a drainage ditch flowing into the Bolshaya Izhorka, carried out by the Center for Water Research and Control, showed that safe concentrations were tens and hundreds of times higher for a number of hazardous substances: carbon tetrachloride - 1642 times, phenols - 2100 times! The sample was taken in April 2010, but the situation has not changed since then, according to Greenpeace.
The director of the Krasny Bor landfill, Alexander Moiseev, thinks differently - in his opinion, the level of danger of the toxic waste repository is artificially exaggerated. “All these are horror stories for ignorant citizens,” says Moiseev. “Much greater harm to the environment is caused by industrial enterprises located within the city and without modern treatment facilities.”
“I periodically receive information that either phenols or carbon tetrachloride are found in the Neva downstream,” says the director of the landfill. “And, naturally, Krasny Bor is blamed for everything.” But what is, for example, carbon tetrachloride? In the recent past, it was produced all over the world in large quantities for domestic use. I suggest you look around. How do enterprises handle such waste? How are wastewater treatment facilities provided?
According to Moiseev, in 2008, Rosnedra, having assessed the capabilities of the enterprise and the amount of incoming waste, issued an operating license to the landfill for a period of 15 years. As for the plant, which they can’t build, the 15-year-old project is already outdated. For example, it was focused on burning oily waste, but it stopped flowing to the landfill. Now a complex of treatment facilities, a workshop for receiving hazard class 1 waste, and a laboratory complex are ready for commissioning.
Alexander Moiseev assured that a modern fire safety system was built at the test site. But the main cause of fires is chemical reactions that occur due to the fact that unqualified personnel at enterprises pour various wastes into one container. And this time bomb is being taken to Krasny Bor
In Kolpino, located four kilometers from the toxic waste disposal site, an action against the dangerous neighborhood is being prepared. The collection of signatures for the closure of the landfill has begun. Over the past 20 years since Krasny Bor began to be talked about openly in the media, this is the first initiative of residents. At the end of the 1980s, the operation of the landfill was suspended for several days under pressure from local deputies and environmental organizations. The consequences were disastrous: everything that was not accepted in Krasny Bor ended up being dumped in roadside ditches. Kolpin residents also remember how, in the city center on Lenin Avenue, several tons of hazardous substances were carelessly spilled from a car transporting toxic waste. Those who passed by ended up in a hospital bed...
Experts understand that at the moment there is no alternative to a toxic waste repository in the Leningrad region. The only way out is to push for the speedy construction of a modern processing plant. So it was quite reasonable for the deputies to be concerned about this issue, but this should have been done much earlier.
R. S. According to the participants of the on-site meeting of the environmental commissions of the Legislative Assemblies of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, held at the Krasny Bor landfill, it is necessary to strengthen supervision over the activities of enterprises in the region that generate hazardous waste. Deputies intend to propose to Smolny to create a register of economic entities. Viktor Lozhechko, chairman of the environmental commission, was instructed, when forming the city budget for 2013, to continue to include funding for the construction of an enterprise for the processing and disposal of industrial toxic waste.

Ekaterina KONOVALOVA