The scientists of the FSBI “Southern Research Institute of Marine Fishery and Oceanography” believe that the sand extraction at the Nizhnye-Churbashsky tailing dam will lead to an ecological disaster, Primechaniya reports.
According to experts’ findings, the sand extraction at the tailing dam will lead to the spillage of sludge toxic substances into the Black Sea waters and create an environmental emergency threating to human health.
According to the Primechaniya, the sand extraction is carried out to pay debts of the OJSC “Kamysh-Burunsky iron-ore factory”, which owns the tailing dam while being a bankrupt for a long time, to its LLC “Gen Invest”. It is noted that “Gen Invest” is a resident of the free economic zone in Crimea and the company’s founder holds the position of the director of the SUE “Kamysh-Burunsky manufacturing company”.
The Kerch interdistrict environmental “prosecutor’s office” delivered a decision to stop the sand extraction in the summer of 2014. However, the “Regional Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs” refused to initiate criminal proceedings and the dam continued to be destroyed because of an increasing demand for the sand. It is estimated that more than 200 thousand tons at the price of more than 1,000 rubles per ton have been already extracted.
According to a chemical analysis of samples conducted in April of 2016, the content of phosphorus, arsenic, chromium and vanadium in the sand from the tailing dam is hundreds and even thousands of times higher than the maximum permissible concentration (MPC).
The Nizhnye-Churbashsky tailing dam is a huge hydraulic structure located just behind the Arshintsevskaya Spit between the Zaliv plant and the Geroyevskoye village. It is surrounded on three sides by a moat width of over 50 meters that has a direct connection with the sea and a berm reinforced with planted trees. A storage of toxic industrial wastes is located inside on the area of more than two square kilometers. Currently, the dam almost doesn’t exist from the side of the strait, this means that there is no serious barrier preventing toxic substances from getting into the sea.
