Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to draw up a roadmap for eliminating environmental pollution in Usolye-Sibirskoye in three months. The corresponding order was published on the official portal of legal information on Thursday, July 30.
According to the document, the action plan should relate to the prevention and elimination of environmental pollution in the territory of this urban district in the Irkutsk region as a result of economic activities associated with the production of chemical products. Putin also instructed the Russian Defense Ministry to take part in the development and implementation of the roadmap.
Earlier, the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, instructed the leadership of the regional department of the department to check the unfavorable environmental situation in Usolye-Sibirskoye.
On July 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a video conference on the situation in Usolye-Sibirskoye. In particular, he instructed the interim governor of the Irkutsk region Igor Kobzev to prepare a program for the construction of a gas chemical complex in the region.
At the meeting, Putin also pointed out that the city’s environmental problems have been accumulating since the 1930s and for many years they were not resolved and were hushed up. He said there was a need to define a long-term work order to restore the damaged environment.
The President recalled that a large chemical enterprise operated on this territory and now the storage facilities for chemical production waste are in an emergency condition.
In July 2019, Usolye-Sibirskoye was included in the Roshydromet report in the list of 20 settlements with the dirtiest air in the country.
In the same month, the head of Rosprirodnadzor, Svetlana Radionova, told Izvestia that her department was seeking the creation of a state program for the reclamation of the territory of the Usoliekhimprom enterprise, where there is a huge amount of mercury-containing residues, and containers with chemically hazardous substances are stored in the buildings of the plant. According to her, inaction can lead to “ecological Chernobyl”.