Kamchatka is dealing with “fish broth”

The company Ekologichesky Rezerv (Ecological Reserve), which has been pouring off press water to fields near the village Chapayevka (Kamchatka Krai) “to improve soil fertility” for nearly 6 years, might be fined 170 million rubles (approximately $ 2.7 million), and a criminal case might be initiated.

For several years Ekologichesky Rezerv has been processing waste from large fishing enterprises in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and discharging liquid waste from fishmeal production into fields near four suburban villages. As a result, there is a permanent unbearable stench that local residents have repeatedly complained of to all authorities. And the company claimed that this was a scientific experiment to improve soil fertility and promised to register a new type of fertilizer this year.

As it was announced at public discussions of the results of control and supervision executed by the State Ecological Supervision Inspection of Kamchatka Krai, a closer look at the enterprise’s activities revealed that press water is nevertheless a waste product included in the Federal Waste Classification Catalogue referred to as Fat Separators Containing Animal Fat Products. This substance can be considered a fertilizer improving soil fertility, but only after it passes the state registration of pesticides and agrochemicals, obtains a state certificate and is included in the State Catalogue of Pesticides and Agrochemicals approved for use in Russia. And this company has no other documents for its “fertilizer”, except technical specifications, and press water as an agrochemical is not included in the state catalogue.

‘Thus, from 2013 to 2019, the company dumped product waste rather than fertilizers onto the land plot, making it an illegal disposal site for liquid waste without growing any crops on it,’ Vladimir Zhivoludov, Deputy Inspection Director, stated in his report.

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Vladimir Zhivoludov has confirmed that several protocols on administrative offenses were drawn in the summer, and the lawsuits were submitted to the court for consideration, including the one related to the disposal of liquid waste and to the burial of 21,361 tons of waste on the land plot between 2013 and 2019, which caused damage to the soil as an environmental protection site in the amount of 170 million rubles (about $ 2.7 million).

In addition, the materials were sent to the Kamchatka Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor’s Office for the prosecutor to file a lawsuit in the court to recover the environmental damage in the amount of 170 million rubles (around $ 2.7 million) from Ekologichesky Rezerv and to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia in Kamchatka Krai to resolve an issue of initiating criminal proceedings against the officials of Ekologichesky Rezerv under Part 2 of Article 247 of the Criminal Code (“Violation of the Waste Treatment Rules Resulting in Soil Pollution”).

Last summer, due to numerous citizens’ appeals related to the activities of the enterprise, the authorities of Kamchatka Krai intervened into the issue. The company management promised the governor that production would be stopped before autumn. According to reports, this has not happened so far…