‘UC RUSAL’s Bogoslovskiy smelter carried out a detailed investigation of why the River Turiya, Sverdlovsk Region, had turned red. It was detected that the area around the company’s slurry pipeline got contaminated because the pipeline had leaked. So some of the slurry was washed down into the river with melt-water, coloring it red,’ the smelter reports.

This means UC RUSAL’s enterprise actually admitted that their equipment did have some faults and deficiencies, whereas they had claimed earlier that the company had nothing to do with the contamination of the river.

The local public prosecution authorities came up with their preliminary report as early as May 20, 2009. The experts insisted that the contamination of the river and the surrounding area with alumina production’s industrial waste had been caused by a leaking slurry pipeline.

What is more, it had been revealed that the smelter did not have a valid license allowing it to use their current slurry reservoir, which is a grave violation of the law.

The authorities now say that, under the worst-case scenario, the enterprise might be involved in a criminal lawsuit, with the environmental offense charges.