Gold exploration and mining activities have been banned on the spawning river in Kamchatka

The Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court banned the exploration of deposits and the extraction of placer gold in the Iudumich River basin in the Kamchatka Territory, reported at the regional prosecutor’s office. During the inspection, the Kamchatka Interdistrict Environmental Prosecutor’s Office revealed gross violations committed by the subsoil user.

“It has been established that the subsoil user, in the presence of conclusions from the authorized body in the field of fisheries on the refusal to approve economic activities, began to carry out work that has a direct and indirect impact on aquatic biological resources. At the same time, the basis for the refusal was the conclusion that the planned activity did not comply with the principles and requirements of environmental legislation and that the measures provided by the enterprise to preserve biological resources and their habitat were insufficient,” said senior assistant prosecutor Elizaveta Denisyuk. In October last year, geological exploration work was suspended at the request of the prosecutor.

In February, the court satisfied the prosecutor’s claim and made a decision to prohibit the exploration of the deposit and the extraction of alluvial gold in the Iudumich River basin in the absence of approval obtained in the prescribed manner from the North-Eastern Territorial Administration of Rosrybolovstvo. Also, the subsoil user was held liable under Part 1 of Art. 8.42 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation for the use of the coastal protective strip of a water body, the water protection zone of a water body in violation of restrictions on economic and other activities. He was given a fine of 200 thousand rubles.

According to Kommersant, we are talking about the Avtomix company, which purchased this site at an open auction in 2019 for 10.5 million rubles.

Guzel Latypova, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky