Runoff from the soil disposal
from the Adler-Krasnaya Polyana road destroyed all life in
the protected river
The YABLOKO party continues its monitoring of the environmental
situation at the Black Sea coast, at construction of the Olympic
facilities in Sochi. Since the public inspection of Sochi
construction sites conducted by Sergei Mitrokhin jointly with
activists from the North Caucasus Environmental Watch held
in October 2010, the ecological situation has deteriorated.
According to Suren Ghazaryan, activist of the YABLOKO party
and the Environmental Watch on North Caucasus, catastrophic
pollution of the Drykhra river and its water storage reservoir
began on January 8, 2011. The pollution led to mass death
of fish in the river.
According to Suren Ghazaryan, activists of the Environmental
Watch came to the site on January 19. They reported that the
disaster was catastrophic. The Dzykhra River, which prior
to the construction of Olympic facilities had been part of
the special protected zone of the Sochi National Park, turned
into a sewage ditch with the reservoir resembling a sewage
pit.
The pollution began from the heaps of soil disposal from
the tunnels of the Adler-Krasnaya Polyana highway. A huge
dump of such soil was organised by the Russian Railways (RZhD)
in the upper reach of the river, said an activist. The Environmental
Watch had been repeatedly appealing to the corresponding authorities
demanding to avert the disaster and organize engineering protection
measures of the dump which had been built without environmental
expertise. In November 2010 the problem of the dump was raised
before the experts of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP),
which recommended that officials should pay attention to this
large threat to the ecosystem of the national park.
As a result, Rosprirodnadzor (Ed. the environmental control
agency) suspended the functioning of the dump for ten days,
however, this did not change the situation, and the Russian
Rails continued to deliver thousands of tons of waste to the
upper reaches of the river.
According to the available data, the soil extracted by drilling
shows presence of chemical reagents that could cause the death
of living organisms in the river and the reservoir. At present
the contaminated water reached the Mzymta river, the main
waterway of Sochi.
According to the activist, the Russian environmental control
agencies, prosecutors, the state-owned Olimpstroy corporation,
the Russian Rails (RZhD), and even the organizing committee
of the Olympic Games "Sochi-2014" knew about the
impending disaster.
"Once again it became clear that preservation of nature
and health of local residents were the issues of no significance
for the builders and officials who are only concerned about
meeting the deadlines of the construction. This means that
the whole Olympic Sochi may soon turn into a zone of ecological
disaster," said Suren Ghazaryan.
After a visit to the Krasnodar Territory, YABLOKO’s leader
Sergei Mitrokhin, raised the issue of environmental catastrophe
in the region before the heads of the Russian Rails and the
leaders of the country after his visit to the Krasnodar Area
in October 2010. However, there has been no reaction from
them yet.
Photos
See also:
Protection
of Environment
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