Norilsk Nickel caught dumping poisonous waste into rivers month after the catastrophic diesel leak

A major illegal discharge of toxic waste from the Talnakh enrichment plant’s tailing dump was stopped in Norilsk. 

Journalists Yelena Kostyuchenko and Yuri Kozyrev from Novaya Gazeta newspaper, and a team of ecologists filmed two large pipes dumping poisonous water from the factory’s tailings storage into River Kharaelakh, Lake Pyasino and on the surrounding tundra. 

They raised the alarm with local police and emergency services, and streamed live videos of poisonous water charging out of the pipes via social media and through the newspaper’s website.

Norilsk Nickel’s workers stopped the pumps and rushed to dismantle the pipes, accidentally crashing a police car that brought prosecutors from Norilsk.  

A major illegal discharge of toxic waste from the Talnakh enrichment plant’s tailing dump was stopped in Norilsk. Video credit Mariya Ryabinina 

The toxic waste has been pumped into the tundra for a long while, TASS news agency reported citing its sources in law enforcement. 

‘A mobile pump with two rubber pipes some 400mm in diameter was found at the site. The pumping continued for a long time, it was established by external signs.

It was impossible to figure out the limits of the spill due to the site being swampy’, the agency reported. 

This latest environmental disaster follows a spill of 21,000 tons of diesel splashed from a damaged fuel tank into the rivers Ambarnaya and Daldykan and onto the surrounding tundra last month. 

Pictures of red-coloured rivers of diesel outside Norilsk went around the world, with the disaster described as the worst ecological catastrophe in the Arctic.

Norilsk Nickel caught dumping poisonous waste into rivers and tundra a month after the catastrophic 21,000 ton diesel leak. Pictures: Vasily Ryabinin

However several teams of ecologists and journalists were stopped by Norilsk Nickel’s security from carrying independent measurements of levels of contamination in rivers and lakes around the city. 

Yesterday State Duma MP Sergey Mitrokhin was stopped at Norilsk airport as he boarded a flight to Novosibirsk, and banned from taking samples of water and soil from the Pyasina and Lake Pyasino. 

The MP was told that only Norilsk Nickel could decide on material leaving the city.