"Siberia's Chemical Chernobyl"; Hg @ 33,000X Allowable Levels At Massive Abandoned Plant

[hatrack]

'Frankly, nobody has ever done anything about them.' Picture: Ministry of Defence

Concern over the abandoned Usolyekhimprom plant in Usolye-Sibirskoye, Irkutsk region has been rising for a long time. This week on an order by Russian president Vladimir Putin specialist forces as well as experts from Rosatom and other government agencies have set to work cleaning up the site of one of the USSR’s largest chemical plants. Footage shows the decontamination operation getting underway by taking samples of the poisons - not all of them known - threatening the nearby Angara River which flows out of Baikal, the world’s deepest lake.






'A large chemical factory was functioning there, and now, the waste storage facilities of that chemical factory are in a critical condition.' Pictures: Usolye City Newspaper, Usolie City

EDIT

The most urgent task is dealing with poisoning from a decaying mercury electrolysis facility. The concentration of mercury in drainage waters at the crumbling plant is more than 33,000 times acceptable levels, according to defence ministry sources. Mercury in the air is 367 times above permitted quantities, with the closest residents living just 2km from the site. Some 1,200 tonnes of mercury was stored here.






The most urgent task is dealing with poisoning from a decaying mercury electrolysis facility. Pictures: Ministry of Defence, Usolie City

Pollution is also caused by oil products, iron, copper, phosphates, lead, zinc and copper at the plant which closed in 2005. The exact chemical cocktails in dozens of underground reservoirs is not known. Soil and groundwater are ‘saturated with toxins’.

Some 400 former industrial facilities are polluted by two million tonnes of chemical waste on an area covering 16 square kilometres.

EDIT

https://siberiantimes.com/ecology/casestudy/news/specialist-troops-set-to-work-decontaminating-siberian-chernobyl-amid-fears-of-ecological-catastrophe/

[Bayard]

1. So, its just been sitting there like this for the past 15 years....

Wonder if anyone actually lives in the area? I bet real estate is cheap.

[hatrack]

2. Nearest neighbors are about a mile away

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[RainCaster]

3. Looks worse than Hanford

I guess no one is immune to ecological abuses.