Press Release, 19.05.2020

Despite the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the Leinigrad Region in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration of the Priozersky municipal district of the Leningrad Region intends to hold public hearings on the recultivation of the local landfill. District officials turned down the proposal of the Yabloko branch in the Leningrad Region to postpone the hearing until the coronavirus restrictions were completely lifted. Public hearings are scheduled for May 25.

“We are once again shown that it does not matter at all what is written in the law, it is much more important how it is interpreted,” said Oksana Demchenko, authorised representative of the Yabloko party in the Leningrad Region. “The period of public discussion of the project fell on the time of sanitary and epidemiological restrictions, cinemas and shopping centres were closed, mass public events were canceled, but it turns out that public hearings the officials neede can be held – there is already an example of Kingisepp, and now Priozersk.”

“An attempt to overcome the stage of public discussion and get a positive examination of the state expertise without full consideration of the opinions of local residents and public organisations is always fraught with big problems in the future, already at the stage of implementation of the project,” Demchenko emphasised. “Residents of the districts of the Leningrad Region with good reason may feel cheated when construction equipment arrives at the site and it turns out that citizens have no legitimate opportunity to influence the project, since the public discussion took place during their isolation. Such a scenario of development of the situation is unacceptable if the goal is the sustainable development of the territory of the Leningrad Region on the basis of equal dialogue and public participation.”

It should be noted that on April 27, the authorised representative of the the Yabloko party in the Leningrad Region made a proposal to postpone the environmental impact assessment procedure (including the stage of public discussion involving a public hearing) on ​​all high-profile waste management projects for a period of time after the end of the coronavirus infection epidemic and normalisation of living conditions on territory of the region. Corresponding letters were sent to the Governor of the Leningrad Region, regional administrations and the customers of the planned economic activity.