"The trees in the lake with this water stood dead"

Grinupis ecologists, Novye specialist and ex-employee of Rosprirodnadzor discovered and stopped a new environmental disaster in Taimyr (this material was first released in 2020)

This material was published in No. 66 (3078) of July 1, 2020. We published it in an anniversary issue. You can buy it here

On June 28, we recorded the drain of infected waters from the tailing of the Talnakh processing factory belonging to Norkel. The liquid whipped through two 450 mm pipes at a frantic speed-it was pumped out from the tailing and pumped through the beet.

It was difficult to call it water: the liquid foamed like a shampoo, had a sharp chemical smell and obviously killed the living. We saw the yellowed larch along the stream (the stream was walking along a confidently punched riveting), saw the dead lake into which the stream spilled. Sticks from the water are former trees. Along the coastline, trees also died, but so far they had a bark.

We immediately turned to the police and the Ministry of Emergencies. But the Norilsk Nickel reacted the fastest.

First, employees of the Security Department appeared and demanded to leave the facility, and when it was not possible to drive us out, they turned off the pumps. After that, the pipes began to disassemble the suddenly appeared workers. Arriving emergency services looked at what was happening, not trying to interfere with them.

A lot of services came - and the UK, and the prosecutor's office, and Rosprirodnadzor. Whether this will end with something, except for the next ruble, imposed on a company with a turnover of $ 8 billion a year, we will soon find out.

After a few hours, Norilskell, and followed by Svetlana Radorova, the head of Rosprirodnadzor, explained what happened in almost the same formulations. According to them, the discharge was emergency, emergency: during hydraulic tests of the pipeline of hot water and "due to abundant rain", the water in the tailing storage rose sharply. And the "operational staff" decided to lose water into the "surrounding area."

I think this is a lie. We consider this a lie.

Why? Because we have evidence that the drain occurred 8 days ago.

Then I quote Vasily Ryabinin’s letter to the president.

Vasily Ryabinin's letter to the president
“In satellite images in Google cards, I saw a huge number of lakes of unnatural color around the tailing of the Talnakh processing factory. I had the assumption that the tail fluid seeps through the dam. Together with Kostyuchenko Elena Gennadievna, a special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta, on June 20 of this year, they decided to inspect the indicated territory closer, as well as remove the area from the quadrocopter to check the lakes with unnatural colors and, possibly, see the places of polluted liquids through the body of the tail of the tail.

When we approached the lake (69 ° 31'37.1 ”N 88 ° 11'25.4” E), we saw that it was unnaturally gray-blue with foam along the shores, the trees standing in the lake, as well as the trees along its shores were dead. Streams flowing from the lake flowing into the Haraelah River. It is known that Haraelah flows into Lake Pyasino.

The noise of the generator was heard. We launched a quadrocopter with a GoPro camera fixed on it, with which we carried out a fuss. Arriving home, watching the photos, we found in the pictures the place of discharge of the water storage waters, namely: two pipes walking on the ground and leaving the tailing of the tundra, as well as the visible place of discharge.

As a result of the fact that the resolution of the photos is too low, we decided to return to the alleged place of plum and watch with our own eyes and fix what is happening on the video. ”

Why did it take eight days?

Because it was necessary to assemble the team. Because it is very scary in Norilsk, it’s really scary to go against the main owner of everything around - Norilsk Nickel. Only his sister Maria went with Vasily. And we. And Greenpeace.

And we saw what we expected - draining the poisonous waters into the already practically killed lake Pyasino. And you also saw it.

I have absolutely nothing to say to Radonova. I want to turn to Norkel.

I do not ask to come to my senses - probably this is impossible for you. But at least now think about excuses, but about liquidation. Heavy metals - nickel, cobalt, copper, iron, pava, sulfur, their ionic solutions - will kill what is now breathing and living. You are obliged to try to save what has not yet been killed. But for this we must begin to recognize the truth.

Under the text
In February 2021, the Arbitration Court of the Krasnoyarsk Territory satisfied the lawsuit of Rosprirodnadzor against the Norilsk Nickel GMC and recovered a record of 146 billion rubles for a spill near Norilsk from the enterprise.