Farid Abdulganiev: “Tatarstan to be a pilot region for formation and implementation of a regional priority project for the Volga rehabilitation”

Today in the Cabinet of Ministers of RT it was talked about the Volga rehabilitation project. According to the instruction of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation together with 15 Russian regions has formed the passport of the priority project “Conservation and Prevention of Pollution of the Volga River” (abbreviated name “Volga rehabilitation”. In this connection, an interdepartmental working group was created for the development and the implementation of the regional priority project for the Volga rehabilitation.

The Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia has chosen the Republic of Tatarstan as a pilot region for the formation and implementation of a regional priority project for these measures. As a result of this work, subject to the implementation of the planned works and the allocation of appropriate amounts for their financing, the volume of discharged contaminated sewage from the Volga Basin to be cleaned should be reduced by at least 60%.

The Regional Project includes the functional direction “Elimination of negative impact sites located on the territory of the Republic of Tatarstan, incl. objects of accumulated harm to the environment”. This plan provides for elimination of two objects of past environmental damage, which have a negative impact on the Volga River state (flooded property and silt fields of the municipal unitary enterprise Vodokanal located in the water protection zone of the Kuibyshev reservoir).

Within the framework of the functional direction “Protection of small streams of the Volga River in the territory of the Republic of Tatarstan”, the regional Project provides for the implementation of two measures at the expense of subventions from the federal budget:

- determination of the boundaries of the water protection zones of the Kazanka River and its tributaries for the purpose of state environmental supervision over the implementation of legislation in the field of water bodies protection;

- channel regulation measures on the Kazanka River near Arsk in order to ensure the normalization of the hydrological regime of the river - first-grade Volga tributary.

Treatment facilities

In accordance with the order of the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev, the works to reduce the negative impact on the Volga and improve the quality of water resources should be implemented. First of all, it is necessary to strengthen environmental monitoring of the Volga basin environment, as well as to continue construction and modernization of treatment facilities for utilities.

In recent years, all concerned departments, together with the municipal districts of the republic, made significant work to reduce the anthropogenic pressure on the main river of the country – the Volga:

Now in Tatarstan:

- Shore lines have been established, i.e. borders of the largest water bodies of the Volga basin. In 2016, the Ministry of Ecology of RT in two stages carried out work to clarify the location of the shoreline (the water body boundary) of the Kuibyshev and Nizhnekamsk reservoirs with a total length of more than 1200 km. In the current year, work is planned to complete the correction of the coastal line of the Kuibyshev and Nizhnekamsk reservoirs within a total length of 1163 km.

- in the part of state environmental supervision, an inventory of industrial enterprises has been carried out. In the territory of Kazan there are only 13 releases of storm sewage and drainage pumping stations

- more than 500 illegal buildings have been demolished to provide public access to water bodies, and 1,700 violations of water protection legislation have been identified and prevented.

Press Service of MENR RT