Burning of pesticides in the Amur region will continue at a distance of at least 60 km from residential areas

The pesticides and agrochemicals stored on the territory of the ZATO Tsiolkovsky in the Amur Region are planned to be eliminated in uninhabited territories – at a distance of more than 60 km from the areas where people live. 640 tons of toxic substances are subject to neutralization. Residents of Zavitinsk have previously protested against the burning of pesticides and agrochemicals near the city.

Information from the regional Ministry of Forestry and Fire Safety is provided by the agency Amur Life. According to the head of the ministry Alexei Sevostyanov, action plans for the neutralization of pesticides and agrochemicals were approved in order to execute the appeal ruling of the Judicial Collegium for Civil Cases of the Amur Regional Court dated February 17, 2017. At the same time, the regional Ministry of Forestry acts jointly with the Ministry of Natural Resources. The planned completion date for the neutralization of pesticides and agrochemicals is provided for no later than October 2023. The area where the neutralization work will be carried out has not been named.

The authorities of the Amur region have already taken an attempt to destroy a large batch of pesticides stored for a long time near the Svobodny cosmodrome. In 2022, a site for burning hazardous substances was equipped a few kilometers from the city of Zavitinsk, which caused a negative reaction from local residents: activists complained about the smoke, appealed, among other things, to the President of the Russian Federation and to the court, after which all contracts were terminated and work stopped.

The State Procurement website published a schedule of the State Budgetary Institution “Ecology” (this department deals with the disposal of pesticides), which also provides for work on the arrangement of a site for waste disposal. It is planned to allocate 5.5 million rubles for this. The terms of the contract have not been published, and there is no information about the place of disposal of hazardous substances.

Ibid published a contract for the transportation and neutralization of pesticides, concluded with Amurtrade LLC. According to the document, the contractor must take out 640 tons of packaged dangerous substances from warehouse No. 1 (in the former engineering structure of the Strategic Missile Forces on the territory of the ZATO Tsiolkovsky). The place is determined by the customer GBU “Ecology”. The price of the contract is over 33.7 million rubles. The term of work is until the end of August 2023. In addition, the contract states that it is necessary to start the second stage after receiving the sanitary and epidemiological conclusion of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA). The terms of reference stipulate that transportation and disposal should be carried out in a way that excludes negative impact on the environment.

About the situation – in the material “Kommersant” “Burn it in poison”.

Anna Yashina, Blagoveshchensk