Calm down and smell the ammonia!
Pskov’s entrepreneurs prefer to dispose of hazardous waste in an unofficial way.
Unsanctioned garbage dumps in Pskov’s forests are not rare. And this includes dumps
containing hazardous waste. Unfortunately, attempts at finding their “authors” are often
unsuccessful. In order to radically solve this problem, we need to not only “reeducate”
business executives, but also change the garbage and disposal system.
Ammonia instead of Mushrooms
The summer and fall of 2014 stood out in the Pskov region as unusually abundant in
mushrooms: the region’s residents state unanimously, that they had never seen so many
porcinis in their life. At one point, photographs of baskets, buckets, and even car trunks
full of redcaps and boletus filled everyone’s Facebook and Instagram.
Also thanks to these conditions, in the beginning of September, yet another hazardous
waste dump was found. While hiking through the forest during his “quiet hunt,” one
mushroom seeker returned home and uploaded a number of photos onto a popular
Vkontakte group. They depicted a gigantic deposit of pharmaceutical bottles. This
chemical dump is located not far way from the Rizhskaya Highway, in the Izborsk
district of the Pechorsky region.
The bottles contained a 10-percent hydrogen nitride solution, more commonly known as
“ammonium.” Pharmaceutical guides characterize it as the following: “a clear, colorless,
fugacious liquid with a distinct, sharp smell, and a strong alkaline reaction. Inhaling it
can cause a reflexive response in the respiratory center, acting through receptors of the
upper respiratory tract. At large concentrations, it can cause respiration to shutdown.”
“Not only do we need to remove this poison, we need to punish those who dumped it
here!!!”— justifiably wrote the witness.
This message on social networks did not go unnoticed by local journalists, who took up
asking the authorities: where did the contents of the landfill come from, what is going to
come of it, and what awaits those guilty of putting it there?
Representatives from the Pskov region’s Committee for Environmental and Resource
Protection found out about what happened from Pskov’s correspondents, and promised to
get to the bottom of it.
As a result, the scene was visited by delegation of representatives. Besides the members
of the aforementioned committee, there were also representatives from the Ministry for
Emergency Situations, the Federal Service for Oversight of Natural Resource Usage, the
Federal Service for Consumer Safety, the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, the
Department of the Interior, Forest Protection, and the Pechorski and Izborsk
administrations.
Who’s handiwork?
Representatives from the special services and state authorities stated, that so far as the
bottles weren’t broken, there was currently no threat of them leaking into the
environment. Nevertheless, they all acknowledged that the “the fact alone is unpleasant:”
of course, that there’s a unsanctioned dump of hazardous medical supplies in the woods.
“Judging by the size of the dump, we can assume with confidence, that this is not the
work of a small pharmacy, rather, some decent sized warehouse, or even a medical
manufacturer. – commented Izborsk’s deputy governor, Aleksey Yelagin, who was hot
on the trail.
Armed with this version, our colleagues turned to representatives from large pharmacy
chains with the questions: “Who would throw out hazardous materials in the woods?
What for?” However, all pharmacists were at a loss, assuring us, that they are forced to
deal with expired medical supplies on an extremely rare basis. In this regard,
representatives from the municipal pharmacy network admitted to not even knowing the
cost of disposing substandard medicine.
“I can’t fathom who would dump such a large amount of expired ammonia into the forest.
It’s most likely the work of some large-scale, wholesale firm or manufacturer. But I
myself am not even sure if there are any large wholesalers left in Pskov, since even we
source primarily from wholesalers in Petersburg. It’s possible that the dump’s creator is
from a another region,” suggested the director of a municipal pharmacy.
And nobody will be the wiser
Thanks to the fact that directions to the dump were described on social networks down to
the last detail, a correspondent from Pskov’s Information Agency was also at the scene.
You couldn’t count on witnesses to tell you: the spot is remote. Besides people looking
for mushrooms, no one struggles that far. There’s no housing around. Speaking for
myself, this explains why the intruders specifically chose this spot to dump hazardous
waste in.
Furthermore, a closer inspection succeeded in revealing two facts. First, the ammonia
turned out to be seriously expired. Second, judging by the markings on what was left of
their cardboard packaging, the bottles were produced by the joint-stock company,
Pskovian Pharmaceutical Factory.
Alas, these clues lead to a dead end: connecting with this company’s representatives was
impossible, because having declared bankruptcy in 2011, it was liquidated by the
decision Pskov’s Arbitrage Court.
So unfolds a logical version of what happened: After it’s liquidation, the remnants of its
production were taken to the woods and disposed of. Seeing that doing anything with this
expired solution seemed impossible, and no one wished to waste any money solving a
bankrupt company’s problems.
Attempts at connecting with the Pksovian Pharmaceutical Factory’s former directors
were also unsuccessful. In the state-owned business, Phamasia, located at Gospitalnaya 3,
the address where PPF had been located, there turned out to be no one who could lend
any insight into this matter. All citing the considerable period that had passed since the
previous company’s liquidation.
To pick up after oneself
Members of law enforcement came to the same conclusion: the dump’s perpetrators
could be former Pskovian Pharmaceutical employees. However, since the company has
been out of business for a long time, it is much more difficult to verify anything.
In the meantime, the Pechorscki region’s Ministry of the Interior decided to dismiss the
criminal case: as Pskov’s Information Agency was informed, the basis for this was the
conclusions made by the region’s Committee for Environmental and Resource Protection.
Experts from this committee announced that because the solution is contained in
insulated bottles, it is not a hazard to people, nor the environment. Moreover, the head of
the Federal Service for Consumer Safety’s Pskov division assured PIA, that 10-percent
ammonia solution “does not actually present an ecological problem.” To prove his words,
he told about how “in Soviet times, hundreds of thousands of tons of it were poured on
fields as nitrogen fertilizer.”
One way or another, the Ministry of the Interior sent the collected materials to the
Environmental Prosecutor’s Office. According to law enforcement, the dump should be
dealt with by local authorities, whose responsibilities include cleaning up garbage left on
the territory entrusted to them.
Court is in session
The area in which the dump was discovered is leased to Phechorskii Off-farm Forestry.
Needless to say, the company would sincerely like to know who dumped hazardous waste
onto their territory.
According to their contract, the holders of the lease are responsible for getting rid of
unsanctioned dumps. However, the containers of ammonia solution fall under the
category “industrial waste.” Thus, as the region’s Deputy Environmental Attorney,
Eugene Konyuxov, informed Pskov’s Information Agency, according to current law, the
municipal authorities should resolve the issue.
“The authorities,” obviously, aren’t happy about this “gift.” Hence, at the moment, they
are all arguing over who is to going to dispose of the “pharmaceutical surprise.” The
Environmental Prosecutor’s Office proposes that Off-farm Forestry and the Pechorskii
region’s administration eliminate the dump. The lawsuit is being reviewed by the district
court. As has become known to PAI, its review has been scheduled for December 16th.
Whoever is appointed the task will have to turn to one of the district’s special
organizations, qualified to eliminate specific kinds of waste.
Aleksey Yelagin, Izborsk’s Deputy Governor, saw this coming a long time ago: “By law,
disposing of hazardous waste (even if it’s not of the highest degree) can only be carried
out by specialized organizations with the proper licensing. These services cost several
thousand rubles. Thus, we’ll probably either have to declare an auction, or find specialists
by requesting quotes.”
The director of one of Pskov’s organizations that specialize in the disposal of hazardous
waste, Nikolai Lukin, already calculated the cost of the Pechorskii administration’s
request. According to his calculations, in order to clear this dump, the size of which is no
less than 20 square meters, it will cost around 90 thousand rubles.
The tip of the iceberg
According to the Environmental Prosecutor’s Office, around three dozen unsanctioned
solid waste dumps were seen to on the region’s territory. This includes one containing
mercury--hazardous to the first degree-- from broken florescent lightbulbs.
However, it’s obvious that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Many companies in Pskov are
still trying to cut costs by secretly burying waste in nearby woods. Even the fact that this
waste could endanger both nature and people doesn’t stop them.
What does it say, if there’s even a warehouse belonging to the city in downtown Pskov
that, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, has accumulated more than 50 thousand
florescent lights, more than 2,500 mercury arc lamps, around 1000 items of medical
waste, and almost 20 kilograms of second-degree mercury?
The city’s administrators claim that the waste accumulated over the last eight years will
be taken care of. However, representatives from the Service for State Oversight are
already expressing doubts that the funds allotted to this task will be sufficient.
To fundamentally solve this problem, we need to increase citizen awareness, and also
make waste disposal services more affordable. For right now one can only dream:
eliminating this kind of waste is not cheap.
And so, Pskov’s mushroom seekers are doomed to find unpleasant surprises in the
woods, like mountains of discarded pharmaceutical bottles.
Maksim ANDREEV