UrBC, Yekaterinburg, January 17, 2019. A non-profit organization Zhivoy Shemur is now active in Sverdlovsk Region: Denezhkin Kamen National Park’s press secretary Robert Karapetyan announces via a Facebook post that the organization will be dealing with the environmental problems in Sverdlovsk Region’s north.

The group unites a number of public organizations, communities, and experts from Severouralsk and Ivdel. The organization’s website provides information on the lab tests of water from the local rivers, photographs, details on conferences and meet-ups, and legislative changes in the environmental sector. You can also report a problem there.

UrBC reported earlier that Denezhkin Kamen National Park’s management alerted the public to Ural Mining & Metallurgical Company (UMMC) polluting local rivers and ponds as early as in 2017. The tests from an independent, authorized lab indicated increased pollutant content then. For one, the amount copper in the River Shegultan exceeded the maximum permissible discharge by 780 to 1,000 times; the aluminum, cadmium, manganese, and zinc limits got exceeded by 16 times, 3.4 times, 91 to 97 times, and 360 times, respectively. As for the River Taltiya, the concentration of copper, aluminum, cadmium, manganese, and zinc exceeded the maximum permissible discharge limits by 3,500 times, 2,385 times, 1.5 times, 174 times, and 300 times, respectively.

‘There’s reason to believe that the pollutants contaminated the water as a result of developing Tarnerskoye, Shemurskoye, and Novo-Shemurskoye Deposits by UMMC’s Svyatogor. (ElectroZinc operating in Vladikavkaz is yet another of UMMC’s member enterprises.) The company representatives actually admit to the problem,’ the organization’s press service says.