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The Planned Removal of BPPM Waste from Baykalsk

30.01.2019

The Planned Removal of BPPM Waste from BaykalskThe Baikal Civil Society Center continues to work on the problem of BPPM waste. They represent the society’s position. A recent interview with local minister Andrei Kryuchkov raised a lot of questions from the public, after which he was approached by active participants of public works programs with an open letter. In it, the minister was asked to clarify the position of the regional government regarding the recommendations of the Accounts Chamber on the termination of the agreement between the government and Rusgeology. He was also asked to clarify why it was him who reported on plans to export emissions from Baykalsk.

To the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Irkutsk Region, A. G. Kryuchkov

Dear Andrey Valerievich!

On December 28, 2018, the “Kislorod.LIFE” Internet resource published your interview in the position of the Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Irkutsk Region. Your answers raised many questions, but now it is important for us to clarify two points.

Firstly, in your answers concerning the Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill, you actually confirmed the findings of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation in report No. OM-123 / 09-04 of December 3, 2017: “The state contract of December 22, 2017 No. 66-05-65 / 17 was concluded by parties that were aware that the contract  could not be executed due to the lack of updated project documentation.  This fact contains signs of a made-up transaction, which, in accordance with Article 170 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, may be considered null and void. ”

You say in the interview: “At first we requested the “old project” and, together with Rusgeology, examined immediately. Then it became clear that the BPPM treatment facilities were stolen. Many internal communications were damaged. Besides that, for some reason, other sources of pollution were not taken into account in the VEB Engineering project – in particular,  160 thousand tons of black liquor.  Also, VEB Engineering technology was suspicious from the start, and there would be paving. This is useless. The waste in the BPPM tanks will then become slightly more solid; if they are now in a liquid state, they will become pasty.”

It is known that back in October-November 2017, the West-Baikal Inter-district Environmental Prosecutor’s Office with the participation of your Ministry of Protection of Lake Baikal, the presence of black liquors in the amount of 163 thousand cubic meters in the BPPM treatment facilities were established as an indisputable fact, as reported by the media, in particular, the newspaper belonging to the regional government dated 08/11/2017 in the article “BPPM: tracing the black liquor”.

Even from what has been written here, it is obvious that the non-enforceability of the documentation developed by VEB Engineering was evident long before the conclusion of the state contract No. 66-05-65 / 17 dated December 22, 2017, between the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Irkutsk Region and JSC Rusgeology.  The signs of a void (null) deal are obvious. 

I ask you to inform the public if you, as a minister, intend to restore justice in the actions of the ministry entrusted to you and to achieve, as suggested by the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation in a letter addressed to the Governor of Irkutsk Region No. 09-462 / 09-04, termination of the said state contract by agreement of the parties.

Secondly: You said in an interview that there would be “no sarcophagi and burials in the territory” that “the sources of pollution left to the region inherited from the USSR should be completely removed from the territories of the municipalities”, and “after the export of lignin the sites can be rehabilitated”.

 Considering that the contractor does not yet have the technology for neutralizing sludge-lignin and its transformation into soil,  except for the only proven technology of the Limnological Institute (patent for invention No. 25266983 dated July 03, 2014), which is not claimed by either JSC Rusgeology or LLC VEB Engineering. Sludge-lignin, most likely, will not be able to be removed from the class of waste. For its permanent storage it is necessary to equip a special landfill in accordance with the federal law of June 24, 1998 No. 89-FЗ “On Production and Consumer Waste”.

The Government of the Irkutsk Region already has a negative experience in coordinating the placement of a similar landfill in the Shamanka of the Shelekhovsky District, when behind-the-scenes and thoughtless actions provoked protest responses from citizens and the creation of the “Moty Rescue Front”. But from what you said, we understand that as the customer for the execution of work to eliminate the accumulated environmental damage, you will still insist on the export of sludge-lignin from the territory of the Slyudyansky district.  At the same time, none of the federal or regional state programs includes costs for designing and creating a landfill for storing sludge-lignin from the Baikal pulp and paper mill.  But if, as you say, “the regional government and Rusgeology” intend to proceed to the elimination of industrial waste no later than the second half of the year, 2019, by that time the landfill should already be operational.

I ask you about the following: in what place is it planned to create a landfill for permanent storage of sludge-lignin? What is the stage of implementation? From what financial sources will be financed the construction of the landfill? How far from the Solzansky landfill will be located the new landfill? What volume of sludge-lignin is supposed to be transported and what transportation costs are assumed and from what sources? When and where is planned the public hearing of the EIA landfill project?

Chairman of the Board Faleichik Yuri Iosifovich (Yu. I. Faleichik)