Alexander Shadrikov: "People cannot wait months for us to solve the problem with air quality in Salavat Coopere, which means that measures must be effective and efficient"
Today, the Ministry of Ecology hosted an interdepartmental meeting on air quality in the Kirovsky and Aviastroitelny districts of Kazan with the participation of the head of the department Alexander Shadrikov, the leadership of the Volga-Kama Interregional Department of Rosprirodnadzor, the Department of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare in the Republic of Tatarstan, the Executive Committee of Kazan and the management of the MC "PZhKH".
Let us remind you that this is the second working meeting in such composition. The first meeting was held in February on the initiative of the Minister of Ecology.
As the head of the Ministry of Ecology noted at the very beginning of the meeting today: "The main goal of the working meeting is to solve the problem with air quality in the Aviastroiltelny and Kirovsky districts of Kazan. We discussed a number of issues at the first meeting, today I hope that the MC "PZhKH" will report to us about the intermediate stages and how they started solving the problem, we will hear from them an answer on time lines. The Ministry of Ecology is now online monitoring the situation in the residential complex "Salavat Coopere". We have opened an automatic air pollution control station there at the request of residents. Sampling takes place every 20 seconds, and we see all the indicators. Thank you to the Executive Committee of the city for promptly agreeing on a land plot for the station." Automatic measurements and the selected location allow you to monitor the quality of atmospheric air online in the zone of influence of nearby enterprises and facilities, including such as PJSC Kazanorgsintez, the MSW landfill of the MC "PZhKH" and others. Deputy Minister of Ecology Olga Manidicheva added that complaints from residents continue to arrive and despite the fact that there are fewer of them compared to February, the overall task is to reduce them to zero. Deputy Head of the Executive Committee of Kazan on Housing and Communal Services Iskander Giniyatullin thanked the Ministry of Ecology for the prompt work on air quality control: "We are already seeing the first results, but we need to solve the problem with the landfill on Khimicheskaya Street globally. The recipe is simple – reclamation, especially since there is already a great example – this is the Samosyrov landfill."
Following the results of the first meeting, a roadmap was developed and today Dmitry Petrov, the General Director of LLC MC "PZhKH", reported on the first results of the implementation of measures under this work plan.
The regional operator conducted an inventory and identified the points of leakage of fetid filtrate from the landfill body, work began on filling the perimeter of the map with soil to avoid further expiration of this sediment, pipes were installed to drain landfill gas, tests are underway using environmentally friendly sprayers to neutralize the smell. This aqueous emulsion eliminates unpleasant odors point-by-point and is used in the field of waste disposal, including municipal waste. Also, the MC "PZhKH" together with the laboratory of Rosprirodnadzor "TSLATI" established control points for conducting air tests on chemical indicators in the zone of influence of the landfill. The schedule of events provides for sampling at each of the three points once a week.
The head of the interregional department of Rosprirodnadzor Fayaz Shakirov emphasized that an aqueous emulsion is only a way to neutralize the smell, whereas measures should be aimed at the complete elimination of all those violations that were identified during an unscheduled on-site inspection of Rosprirodnadzor. Let us recall that the agency initiated an inspection of the MSW landfill after a huge number of complaints received by environmental agencies from residents of the Kirovsky and Aviastroitelny districts of Kazan. During the inspection, gross violations were revealed during the operation of the facility – this is a deviation from the design documentation, leakage of contaminated filtrate along the perimeter of the landfill, the absence of sampling holes on the sources of atmospheric air pollution, and a number of others. Today Fayaz Shakirov once again stressed that the result of the work should be the reclamation of the landfill. The next interdepartmental meeting is scheduled for April 3.