A record number of fresh water pollution cases were recorded in Russia
Roshydromet recorded 311 cases of extreme pollution of fresh water in Russia in July and August alone, “Verstka” drew attention. This is the highest indicator since at least 2018, from which Rosstat publishes data.
In July, 154 such cases were recorded, in August – 157. Before that, the highest rate of 133 cases was in August 2023. In total, 684 cases of pollution have been registered in 8 months of 2024 – this is more than in all of 2021 (598 cases) and 2022 (544), but so far it is almost 200 less than last year.
The most polluted was found in the Dnieper basin in the Smolensk region and in the Siberian regions in the Ob river basin – in the Novosibirsk, Omsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions, in KhMAO, YANAO and Krasnoyarsk Krai.
In half of the cases of high and extremely high pollution of fresh rivers and reservoirs in 2023, heavy metals were found in the water, apparently, which got into the water in places where industrial enterprises are located. Thus, in 2023, water pollution with heavy metals was recorded 62 times in the Taltia River and its tributary the Chernaya River in the Sverdlovsk Region. Roshydromet notes that all of them happened near the place where the subsidiary company UMMC JSC “Svyatogor” mines copper.
Environmentalists polled by “Verstkoy” say that pollution has increased due to a reduction in the number of inspections of industrial enterprises after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ecologist Yevgeny Simonov noted that the most polluted occurs in the summer months, when gold mining is at its peak in Siberia and the Urals. According to him, this greatly affects the increase in the amount of heavy metals in water.
