In the russian tundra, the nickel producer nornickel has been working on a new project following the disaster with 21.000 tons of oil spill highly toxic flussig waste dumped in rivers and lakes according to media reports.
The anti-government newspaper "novaya gazeta" published videos of the sewage polluted with heavy metals and acids. These flowed into the river kharayelakh, which flows via another river into the unique sub-water lake pyassino.
The prosecutor’s office of the krasnoyarsk region launched an investigation into the illegal disposal of toxic liquid waste. According to a press release, the nornickel company acknowledged that it had made a mistake. Sewage disposal has been stopped, those responsible removed from their posts, it said.
"This is a crime against nature and against our children," said vasily ryabkin, a former employee of the local environmental protection agency. He had made the new scandal public together with activists of the environmental protection organization greenpeace and with the newspaper.
The waters near the arctic ocean are currently struggling with the aftermath of the oil spill at the end of may, when 21.000 tons of oil had spilled. There, at a thermal power plant near the city of norilsk, a huge tank had apparently sunk and ruptured due to the thawing permafrost ground. Experts spoke of the grossest oil spill in the russian arctic.
According to greenpeace, nature conservationists and opposition politician sergej mitrochin wanted to take soil samples to moscow over the weekend. However, they were stopped at the airport, which also belongs to nornickel, and prevented from transporting the samples. Greenpeace criticized that everything was being done to obstruct the clarification of the disaster.
"Novaya gazeta" also published a photo of how a bulldozer flattened a police car in an accident. It was not intentional, he said. The vehicle was there after concerned citizens alerted the police, civil defense, the environmental regulator and the public prosecutor’s office about the new environmental scandal.