Tominsky Can’t Start on Birgildinskoye Deposit
5 September 2016 (13:39)
UrBC, Yekaterinburg, September 5, 2016. Russian Copper Company’s Tominsky Ore Mining & Processing Enterprise can’t start developing Birgildinskoye Deposit in Chelyabinsk Region just yet, the company press service reports.
‘The company was granted the Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency’s permission to do prospecting surveys and mining in the deposit as early as 2011. Under the license agreement, Tominsky had to do all the prospecting and evaluation necessary, produce a feasibility report, and get their exploration plan approved by all the authorities involved.
All this got done by October 2014; the next step was to get the State Commission on Mineral Reserves’ approval of the exploration and mining work,’ the press service says.
It turned out, however, that Chelyabinsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state-run environmental watchdog) insists the deposit is located in Shershnevsky Pond sanitary control zone. Since Birgildinskoye is so close to Chelyabinsk’s source of drinking water, it looks like developing it is out of the question and Rospotrebnadzor banned the project, referring to normative acts adopted as early as 1977.
As Russia’s environmental legislation has undergone numerous changes since 1977, Tominsky lawyers decided to take the case to court in the hope of getting this ban lifted. The litigation is currently in progress.
‘The company was granted the Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency’s permission to do prospecting surveys and mining in the deposit as early as 2011. Under the license agreement, Tominsky had to do all the prospecting and evaluation necessary, produce a feasibility report, and get their exploration plan approved by all the authorities involved.
All this got done by October 2014; the next step was to get the State Commission on Mineral Reserves’ approval of the exploration and mining work,’ the press service says.
It turned out, however, that Chelyabinsk Region division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state-run environmental watchdog) insists the deposit is located in Shershnevsky Pond sanitary control zone. Since Birgildinskoye is so close to Chelyabinsk’s source of drinking water, it looks like developing it is out of the question and Rospotrebnadzor banned the project, referring to normative acts adopted as early as 1977.
As Russia’s environmental legislation has undergone numerous changes since 1977, Tominsky lawyers decided to take the case to court in the hope of getting this ban lifted. The litigation is currently in progress.
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