“Rosatom” and 17 tanks: another “rescue” Usolye from hazardous waste

In mid-February 2023, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Victoria Abramchenko announced on her social media: “The site of Usolekhimprom in the Irkutsk region is now free from the most hazardous waste!”

Allegedly, the Federal Environmental Operator (enterprise “a”) discovered 17 emergency tanks containing mercury waste at the industrial site. They were then removed by the FEO in accordance with safety standards and transferred to special containers.RosatomThe tanks have now been completely removed from the site and taken to specialized facilities for proper disposal. They no longer pose a threat to the residents of Usolye-Sibirskoye and the ecosystem of the Angara River. This achievement is seen as a significant step in preventing an environmental disaster and transforming the site into an area with strong economic potential, according to Abramchenko's statement.

Now let’s determine what is accurate and what is inaccurate.

Recall that “

“took Usolye-Sibirskoye under his wing in 2020. An emergency regime was imposed there due to the risk of hazardous substances leaking from the abandoned Usoliekhimprom enterprise. The President of Russia instructed the Government to create a plan for the neutralization and elimination of all accumulated waste and cleaning up contaminated areas, which has now entered an active implementation phase.RosatomThe plans for Usolye also include completing the “dismantling and demercurization of the structures of the mercury electrolysis shop” (the main source of pollution), ensuring the safe conditions of five emergency containers containing Class I and II hazardous waste, and later disposing of them. Additionally, protective screens will be installed along the Angara coast, and the first three deep waste disposal wells will be eliminated while 12 will be put into a dormant state.

So, what has the government achieved in nearly three years of effort?

Almost ₽400 million was spent on moving the waste from one tank to another, and a lot was said about “demercurization” and “monitoring”. However, there is still no solution for the disposal of nearly 18 thousand tons of waste taken from the brine wells, and no plan for the 30 reactors containing the most dangerous chemicals.

Furthermore, the talk about the 17 tanks suggests that they were simply transferred into different containers, indicating that no real progress has been made.

It has also been revealed that a statement was prepared on behalf of the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, regarding the violations of environmental, sanitary-epidemiological, urban planning, and land legislation during the process of addressing the accumulated environmental damage at the Usolekhimprom industrial site and the selection of a location for the ecotechnopark “Vostok”. More details on the latter can be found here.

Usol residents are asserting that the environmental conditions have worsened. This is supported by Rospotrebnadzor's analysis results, as mentioned in the report “On the state of sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population in the Irkutsk region in 2021”:

Residents of Usol claim that the state of the environment has deteriorated. This is confirmed by the results of the analysis of Rospotrebnadzor, which were published in the report “On the state of sanitary and epidemiological well-being of the population in the Irkutsk region in 2021”:

“The frequency of identification of 1,3-dichloropropanol-2 in the blood of children increased 3.5 times, especially those attending children’s educational institutions located closest to the industrial site; sensitivity to mercury increased by 9.5%,” the report says.