Ilnur Gubaidullin: "We need comprehensive work, interaction of all departments, only then we will be able to solve problems"
Today, Ilnur Gubaidullin, First Deputy Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Tatarstan - Chief State Inspector of the Republic of Tatarstan in the field of environmental Protection, for 40 minutes answered questions from residents on the live broadcast of the Regional Management Center of Tatarstan. He spoke about the most pressing problems that residents address to the Ministry of Ecology. "In 2023, we have already received about 10 thousand appeals – they write and call us on all issues related to the environment, the Ministry has become, perhaps, a single window for receiving complaints," he said. A lot of complaints were received in the northern zone of Kazan, the speaker said. The Ministry of Ecology transfers all the excesses that were identified by complaints from residents to Rosprirodnadzor, since the main contributors to the air pollution of this zone of Kazan are federal supervision enterprises. The first deputy also stopped at complaints about the pollution of water bodies. The main reason here is the unsatisfactory operation of sewage treatment plants and uncontrolled diffuse effluents.
"There are quite a lot of sources of unauthorized discharges, including on the Kazanka River. Often we are faced with the fact that we cannot find out who exactly owns the pipe from which the discharge is carried out. If we talk about monitoring the condition of reservoirs, then this is perhaps the most difficult stage of supervisory activity," he said.
Environmentalists faced a similar situation when they tried to find out the source of pollution of the channels in the village of Otary – foam on the surface of the water appears periodically since 2020. Measures of influence were applied to one of the subscribers connected to the pipe, but they were subsequently canceled in court, since environmentalists could not prove that it was he who was the source of pollution.
"The last appeal from the Otary was in August of this year. We went to the site together with the applicant and representatives of the environmental prosecutor's office, took samples of water and foam. It was found out that the source of the discharges is the pumping station of the Kazan water Utility. This is an object of federal supervision; all materials have been sent by us to Rosprirodnadzor so that colleagues finally put an end to this issue," said the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Ecology of the Republic of Tatarstan.
Speaking on the air of the RMC of Tatarstan, Ilnur Gubaidullin recalled that environmentalists are still working under a moratorium on scheduled and unscheduled inspections of businesses, which seriously limits their capabilities. He illustrated this thesis with the example of the Kinderka River: residents of the Vysokogorsky district themselves identified the alleged source of pollution – the pipe from which the drains drained into the reservoir comes out of the territory of the former household chemicals plant "Khiton".
"There are a lot of small businesses operating on the territory of Khiton now. However, it is impossible to simply come and check them in the conditions of the moratorium. Now we are trying to determine who exactly is the violator. The Executive Committee of Kazan, to which the ministry sent a request, unfortunately, also has no information," the deputy minister said.
Ilnur Gubaidullin also recalled that a large research work is being carried out at Kazanka, the results of which will form the basis of solutions to improve the state of rivers throughout the country, since the sources of pollution are the same for all reservoirs. In addition, in 2023, with the support of the Head of RT, within the framework of the Free Current project, the Tatarstan branch of the Russian Geographical Society carried out work on clearing the riverbed at Kazanka, during which 25 blockages were dismantled and 1,200 tons of fallen trees were extracted.
The recording of the live broadcast is available at the link https://vk.com/tsur_16 ?z=video-201846315_456239411%2F6de55770644f5ebed5%2Fpl_wall_-201846315