Environmental disaster in Norilsk: what did the authorities do a day after Putin’s meeting - and why eliminating the consequences is very difficult

On May 29, an accident occurred on the territory of the TPP-3 Norilsko-Tyimyr energy company (JSC NTEK): due to the depressurization of the tank in the river and the soil, more than 20 thousand tons of diesel fuel hit. At the site of the accident “Exceeding the MPC is tens of thousands of times”, and almost all river tributaries were filled with petroleum products, the head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Radionova said five days later, on June 3, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. That evening in the Krasnoyarsk Territory introduced the emergency regime of the federal level. Now rescuers are pumping fuel from the Ambar River, and investigators find out in whose fault information about the accident has reached Moscow so late.

Rescuers work at the scene of the fuel spill. But it is unlikely to completely eliminate the accident

On the morning of June 4, the Governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory Alexander the USS came to the scene of the accident, and with it - the head of the Russian Emergencies Ministry Evgeny Zinichev, the head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Rodionov and the deputy prospector Nikolai Shishkin. Together they had to understand how to eliminate the consequences of fuel leakage. “We will find a solution today and will certainly fulfill it,” Zinichev said at the beginning of the meeting.

According to Rosprirodnadzor, from the spilled 21 thousand tons of oil products, six thousand tons fell into the ground, another 15 thousand tons into the water: the Ambar River and its tributary River Daldykan. Both fall into a large lake Pyasino, from which the Pyasin River flows, flowing into the Kara Sea.

From June 1 - although the accident occurred on May 29 - 100 rescue rescue rescue rescue rescue rescue rescues work; On the afternoon of June 4, the emergency rescue squad Gazprom Neft flew to Norilsk.

On the eve of June 3, Vladimir Putin reported the leadership of the Krasnoyarsk Territory for a slow reaction to an emergency with a diesel fuel spill at a thermal power plant in Norilsk. The Governor of the SCS at this meeting said that in 14 days it is “problematic” in 14 days, and the main problem is in the disposal of oil products after they are pumped out by pumps from the river. “This is about 20 kilometers of off -road ... The river itself is non -reference ... Therefore, the only option that is proposed is to burn in the corresponding containers ... We do not have such an experience, and therefore I can’t predict that this will happen successfully and within the framework of 14 days,” he said, ”he said.

The head of the Ministry of Natural Resources Dmitry Kobylkin also admitted that "the situation is very difficult" and that he does not imagine, "how to burn so much fuel in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation." “Honestly, I have doubts <...> in the liquidation itself,” he said.

Bonovy (floating) barriers were installed in the Ambariya River, they allowed to localize the diesel spot. But, according to Kommersant, on the night of June 3, the fence was broken by an ice drift, and the bulk of the diesel fuel left under the barriers under the barriers on the Ambar River - and is now already in Pyasino Lake. This was told to Kommersant, the head of the press service of the Federal Agency for Forest.

However, the day after the meeting, already in Norilsk, the head of Rosprirodnadzor Rodionov categorically insisted that the fuel did not get in Pyasino: “The work made by rescuers excludes the subsequent penetration of oil products from the barn to Lake Pyasino, and therefore to the Kara Sea.”

The head of the WWF program for the environmental responsibility of business Alexei Knizhnikov also told Medusa that rescuers, in his opinion, act correctly, gathering an oil stain and directing it to the shore. And there was no ice drift that could break out of the barrier on the river, noted the scribes (in the pictures from the scene of the ice is also not visible).

On June 4, another 100 employees of the Ministry of Emergencies arrived at the place, temporary reservoirs for 16 thousand tons were delivered, the Norilskel press service told Medusa-this company belongs to the NTEK JSC, at the object of which the accident occurred.

So far, from the surface of the Ambarian rescuers, only 137 tons of diesel fuel gathered with a leakage of 15 thousand tons. In addition, almost one and a half thousand cubic meters of polluted soil and pumped up another 201 ton of diesel fuel were collected, the press service reports. Seven lines of Bon Falls are put on the Ambar River.

The executive director of the Russian Green Environmental Platform, Sergei Shakhkatov, who visited the accident, told Medusa that pollution is noticeable on the surface of the Daldykan River and on the Ambar River. But since Daldykan flows into the barn, “according to the technology of work, it is conducted at the end point, because all the pollution will eventually be in the barn,” he explained to Medusa.

There is no question of burning the collected fuel yet: it is planned that it will be exported: if storage conditions allow - after frost, if not - on temporary roads, a representative of Norilsk Nickel told Medusel. The shores will be treated with a sorbent.

“No one has managed to collect more than half of the pollution in the water,” says Signnikov from WWF. “The rest will remain in the water, evaporate, the brushed shores will remain, it will already be possible to calmly remove the remains of diesel fuel from them.”

In his opinion, the damage to water-biological resources in any case will be serious. “Unlike raw oil, the fuel has bad carcinogenic components - for example, benzene - which are destructive for living organisms, they will receive a large dose of poison. It is necessary to understand which fuel mass will dissolve, and based on it to consider the damage. Fines should also be based on this. ”

Elena Panova, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology, said that it would take at least 10 years to restore the environment in the Norilsk area: “There is nowhere to collect, there are no roads, there are no reservoirs. You can’t burn. ”

The governor of the Krasnoyarsk Territory says he learned about the disaster from social networks. The company insists that the emergency reports in a matter of minutes

At a meeting of Vladimir Putin, primarily the divergence of official data from the authorities of the region, the Ministry of Emergencies and the company NTEK was surprised, his spokeswoman Dmitry Peskov admitted .

Officials devoted a lot of time to find out if there was a notification of the incident timely. The head of the Ministry of Emergencies Evgeny Zinichev, reporting Putin about the situation in Norilsk, said that his department received information about the emergencies only on May 31 - two days after the incident, and the USS governor, according to him, learned about what was happening from social networks - despite the fact that the plant’s rescue service stated that there was no environmental damage to the surrounding area.

“And only after the appearance of disturbing information on social networks, persistent issues to relevant officials on Sunday morning [May 31], a real picture of the incident was clarified,” the USS said.

However, in the Norilsk-Tyimyr energy company, in response, they said that they sent copies of official reports of the incident on May 29 to law enforcement agencies. The company insists that the Ministry of Emergencies received information about the situation in a matter of minutes.

How the information was transmitted

The company is sure that they informed the Ministry of Emergencies in a timely manner. “The message about the diesel fuel leak was received on May 29 at 12:55 from the dispatcher, at 12:57 it was confirmed by the TPP specialists. And at 13:08, operational information was transferred to the ODU of Siberia (the United Dispatch Office of the Siberian Electric System, Kemerovo). 13:10 - Operational information was transferred to the Unified Dispatch Service on duty ( ODDS , the administration of Norilsk), ”the report said.

At 14:59, the official form of 2 hours (on the emergence of emergencies) was already sent to the ODDS, at 16:41 - 3 hours, at 17:05 - 4 hours. “Subsequently, AO NTEK on a regular basis sent information about emergencies and measures taken to authorized organizations,” the company said.

According to the classifier of urgent reports, the alleged area (an emergency object) is indicated in the form of 2 hours, in the form of 3ChS - the affiliation of the area (object) of the alleged emergency, and in the form of 4CHS - the forecast of the time of occurrence and the scale of the alleged emergency.

According to the interlocutor of Medusa, close to the leadership of the Ministry of Emergencies, information about the emergency or threat of emergencies, aimed at a single duty dispatch service (under the jurisdiction of the municipal and regional authorities), is automatically transferred to the regional management center of crisis situations of the territorial bodies of the Ministry of Emergencies. “Judging by the fact that there is a message about the incident even on the official website of the regional Ministry of Emergencies, it happened - which means, at the federal level, the ministry was known about the situation in the morning from the summary in the regions,” says the interlocutor of Medusa. According to the REN-TV channel, a message about the depressurization of the fuel tank “with a clear indication of a volume of 30 thousand cubic meters” really on the morning of May 30 was “in the internal documents of the department”.

“Already from the Unified Dispatch Service on duty and the Crisis Situations Management Center, information about such an emergency is necessarily brought to the COO of the Krasnoyarsk Territory , which includes the governor and the head of the territorial department of the Ministry of Emergencies,” Medusa interlocutor explained.

According to Peskov, Putin drew attention to the divergence of data on the moment of notification of the authorities about what happened in Norilsk, presented to him by officials and management of the company. Therefore, law enforcement agencies are given “instructions to find out the truth” and “whether all standards for the urgent informing of the authorities related to emergencies were observed,” Peskov explained.

On the same day, the Investigative Committee “In connection with the untimely informing of the emergency” opened a criminal case under Part 1 of Art. 293 of the Criminal Code (negligence). Investigators carry out the seizures of documents, “information carriers with records of telephone conversations of employees responsible for operational informing, and journals for fixing negotiations on the fact of an emergency.”

The damage is from seven to 100 billion rubles, four criminal cases have been instituted

The Norilsk-Tyimyr Energy Company belongs to PJSC Norilsk Nickel billionaire Vladimir Potanin. Its revenue in 2019 amounted to almost $ 14 billion, net profit - six billion dollars. On the morning of Thursday, June 4, the shares of the Norilsk Nickel became the leader of the fall at the auction of the Moscow Exchange. On the news about the details of a large spill of diesel fuel on the Norkel, the company’s shares belonging to Norilskel by 13:05 MSCs fell by almost 7.5%.

The amount of damage caused and the causes of the accident will be established based on the results of the already appointed forensic examinations-“Construction, technical, environmental and a number of others,” the statement of the Investigative Committee said.

In the Norilsk Nickel, the emergency is explained by the dissolution of permafrost - and the subsidiary of the supports that followed him. The company promises to engage in additional soil research. According to Vedomosti , there was no system for monitoring cracks at the CHPP - although the company was negotiating on the purchase of equipment that monitors the appearance of cracks in the tanks; That is, disaster could be avoided.

The head of Rosprirodnadzor Svetlana Radovonova the day before estimated the damage from the accident at “more than a dozen, possibly hundreds of billion rubles”, the former deputy head of the department Oleg Mitvol - 100 billion rubles. Greenpeace rating only for water bodies-at least six to seven billion rubles.

Norilsk Nickel can spend about a billion rubles on the liquidation and pay a fine of several tens of millions of rubles, quotes RBC as the head of the risk for the risk of sustainable development of the ARA agency Maxim Khudalov.

In addition to the matter of negligence, three more were instituted - under Art. 254 of the Criminal Code (damage to the Earth), Art. 246 (violation of environmental protection rules during work) and Art. 250 (water pollution). These three cases are combined into one production and transferred to the central apparatus of the SK. So far, only one person has been arrested - the head of the boiler -turbine workshop of the TPP Vyacheslav Starostin. He refused to testify. In the near future he is planned to be charged .

On behalf of Putin, the situation is now “under special control” of the Prosecutor General. The CEO of the TPP-3 NTEK announced the warning “On the inadmissibility of violations of the law during the operation of other especially dangerous production facilities”, and the prosecutor's office instructed the territorial administration of Rosprirodnadzor. This check has already begun and take 20 days, said Svetlana Rodionova.

On June 1, she wrote on her Instagram that the employees of the Yenisei department of Rosprirodnadzor arrived at the scene of the accident, but they were not allowed by the security of the thermal power station. Rodionova promised that an administrative investigation would follow this.

The interlocutor of Medusa in the government said that Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko ordered on June 3 to assess the technical condition of hazardous production facilities located in the Arctic and analyze the risk of accidents.

Anastasia Yakreva and Maxim Solopov