Press Release, 2.03.2023

Photo: Iya Boronina connecting with the Moscow City Court / Photo from the personal archive

On 27 February, the Moscow City Court, as a court of appeal, held hearings on the claim of Iya Boronina, Chair of the Yabloko branch in Udmurtia, against the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage (Rosprirodnadzor) and the Federal Regulatory Operator (the Russian Atomic Agency, Rosatom) to invalidate the positive conclusion of the State Ecological Expertise on the Kambaraka plant – a facility for untilisation of hazardous and especially hazardous waste, –  and the Order of Rosprirodnadzor on its approval.

On 7 September, 2022, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow dismissed the claims, but, on 27 February, the Moscow City Court completely canceled  the decision of the court of first instance and sent the case  for a new trial by a different composition of judges.

It should be noted that it was decided to re-profile the production of the Kambarka plant: it was decided to destroy extremely hazardous and especially hazardous waste on the basis of the plant for the destruction of chemical weapons, which is located within the boundaries of a settlement with a population of 10,000 people.

The trial has been going on for over two years already, and all this time the Presnensky Court of Moscow refuses to demand, at the request of Boronina, the necessary evidence in the case – the conclusion of the expert commission, the order of Rosprirodnadzor,           environment impact assessment materials, and technological reports based on the results of engineering surveys of the Kambarka plant. Moreover, the recent objections of the Federal Regional Operator to Boronina’s appeal run that the technological reports based on the results of technology surveys of the Kambarka plant have been assigned the stamp “For Official Use Only”.

According to Boronina, the main claims of the residents of the region are related to the fact that the hazardous production is located at a distance of only 1 km from residential buildings, as well as near the banks of the Kama River, which inevitably entails a violation of the right to environmental safety and a favorable environment, since the production will be source of dioxin pollution, and the distribution radius of dioxin emissions is approximately 50 kilometers.

It follows from the analysis of numerous research papers in the field of occupational medicine and human ecology, that in the delayed and remote post-contact periods, dioxins act as one of the factors of early aging, destructive and atherogenic damage to the cardiovascular system, premature death, including that from oncological diseases of respiratory, digestive, and blood systems. There were revealed the negative impact of dioxins on the reproductive functions of men and women, as well as mutagenic, embryotoxic, and cytogenetic effects. Lower health indicators were established for children of the first and second generation, conceived during the period of exposure to dioxins or the next (one or three years) post-exposure period.

Dioxins cause cancer of the digestive organs (49.9%), mainly of the stomach and the gullet, bronchi (28.5%), blood (14.3%), and kidneys (7.3%). The latent period of the clinical manifestation of cancer is 12-13 years after exposure to dioxins.

Since 2019, Iya Boronina has repeatedly initiated regional referendums on the issue of banning the placement of hazardous production facilities at this site. Despite the refusals of the Central Electoral Commission of Udmurtia (which is also in charge of referendums) and the unprecedented pressure of the authorities on the initiative group, federal courts on the law suits of Boronina recognised a number of refusals of the Electoral Commission as illegal. Despite this, the deputies of the State Council of Udmurtia voted against holding a referendum and polling the opinion of the population on this issue.

“The referendum is the highest form of direct democracy and people’s power, and the decisions made on it do not need additional approval by the authorities. Unfortunately, today in Russia the institution of referendum is used by the authorities exclusively in their own interests, and any initiative of the population is ostracised,” Iya Boronina, Chair of the Yabloko branch in Udmurtis, comments.