Translated material
Phenolic accord
The water in the Amur and water supply systems of Khabarovsk residents has again become poisonous
On the banks of the Amur, the environmental situation has once again worsened . In official reports, the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Khabarovsk Territory warns the population that “in the Khabarovsk region the maximum permissible concentration of volatile phenols is exceeded by 1.4 times, and the norms for ammonia nitrogen in river water are twice as high.” The residents of the regional center themselves were convinced of the veracity of the dry statistical figures directly from the “wet” water flowing from their water pipes.Svetlana Tsapova, a resident of the southern suburbs of Khabarovsk, demonstrates the quality of tap water. The cloudy yellow liquid has a persistent medicinal odor. “You can’t cook with it, let alone brew tea with such water,” say Khabarovsk residents. “It’s scary to even wash your face with such water, because domestic cats and dogs categorically refuse to drink tap liquid even after settling and boiling.”
Experts attribute the deterioration in river water quality to natural factors. As Irina Zubun, deputy head of the sanitary control department of Rospotrebnadzor in the Khabarovsk Territory, reported, in the rivers of the Amur basin the ice is melting somewhat more intensely than in previous years. Warming this spring came too suddenly. During spring floods, the ability of the Amur ecosystem to self-purify traditionally decreases. And along with meltwater, harmful impurities and industrial waste accumulated over the winter are washed off the shores.
As the head of the environmental protection department of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Khabarovsk Territory, Viktor Bardyuk, assured the Vremya Novostey correspondent, up to 90% of toxic waste during the spring flood enters the Amur from the Chinese coast . At the confluence of the Chinese Songhua River, experts assess the level of pollution of the Amur as critical. True, this does not make it any easier for Khabarovsk residents.
At the main water intake of Khabarovsk, the problem of spring pollution was solved using a proven method. According to the chief technologist of the municipal unitary enterprise "Khabarovsk Vodokanal" Elena Arkhipova, while there is ice on the Amur, the water will undergo additional purification using activated carbon. It was in this way that water utility specialists tried to protect residents of the region from the consequences of the passage of a toxic stain from China in the winter of 2005-2006.
However, not all residents of Khabarovsk are still able to receive purified water . The so-called departmental water intakes on the outskirts of the city, even if they try, cannot cope with the purification of heavily polluted Amur waters. At the end of 2005, the authorities simply closed the treatment facilities of the military, railway workers and some other structures, while the peak of chemically contaminated water from the Chinese city of Jilin passed by the regional center.
This spring, as Rospotrebnadzor assured, the degree of pollution of the river is not so dangerous; rather, it is a seasonal phenomenon. This time the Emergency Situations Commission did not close departmental water intakes. 10 thousand residents of the outskirts of Khabarovsk Krasnaya Rechka announced at the end of last week that clean water would be delivered to them by tankers. However, the first water tankers appeared only on Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, a water rush began in a number of districts of Khabarovsk. Residents of the Krasnaya Rechka district are literally sweeping bottled water off store shelves, saleswoman Tatyana Kruzhkova told Vremya Novostey. Free imported water immediately turned out to be in short supply. The military utility workers did not post water delivery schedules anywhere - according to the assurances of local residents, supposedly so as not to create queues.
A solution to the problem of providing clean water to residents of a suburb of ten thousand could be a complete replacement of outdated equipment at the military department’s water intake. But the Far Eastern Military District does not seem to have enough funds for peaceful purposes. The Khabarovsk municipality also refuses to take on its balance sheet the dilapidated utility networks of the Krasnaya Rechka district.
According to the head of the Far Eastern Hydrometeorological Center, Alexander Gavrilov, the problem of cleaning polluted Amur waters could be completely eliminated by switching to the use of underground sources. However, the costs of constructing water pipelines and wells are prohibitive for the authorities of Khabarovsk, Komsomolsk and other Amur cities.
The Russian side continues to count on cooperation with China. Preliminary agreements on joint monitoring of the ecological state of the rivers of the Amur basin between the governments of Russia and China were signed back in May last year. At the end of last week, specialists from the Chinese environmental agency arrived in Khabarovsk. The Russian side is ready to allocate 13.5 million rubles for measures to control the quality of Amur water. for 2007. The head of the Chinese delegation, Luo Yi, assured that the Chinese authorities are ready to spend about 30 billion yuan on equipping chemical factories in the floodplain of the Songhua River with treatment facilities. However, the Chinese official admitted that even these measures will reduce the amount of toxic discharges by only 10% and only by the end of 2010.
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources of the Khabarovsk Territory Sergei Andrienko called the Chinese side’s efforts to improve the Amur ecosystem insufficient. “We are asking not only our neighbors in the region, but also the Russian government to pay closer attention to the problems of transboundary pollution in the Amur basin,” said Mr. Andrienko. Between neighboring states, even after the catastrophic accident at the chemical plant in Jilin at the end of 2005, a scheme has not yet been developed to notify neighbors about the possibility of contamination of transboundary waters.
In addition, according to Mr. Andrienko, the Russian federal authorities, for their part, have still not fully compensated for the costs of regional structures to eliminate the consequences of nitrobenzene contamination of the Amur in 2005. Of the 130 million rubles spent from the budget of the Khabarovsk Territory for these purposes, the Russian government allocated only 50 million.