Environmentalists: incineration plant in Naro-Fominsk will be the most harmful in Europe

This is an incineration plant (IP), one of five being built by RT-Invest and its subsidiary AGC-1.

Tatiana Pavlova, eco-activist, public figure

For the first time, hearings on the environmental impact assessment of the incinerator in Naro-Fominsk (Mogutovo village) were held in 2018. Repeated hearings in November 2021 were required because changes were made to the draft. All of them are not related to the combustion process: the length of the piles, the height of the roof, the parameters of power equipment, etc. have been changed.

However, as established by Valery Sosnovtsev, expert of the incineration group of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, Ph.D., according to the data in the environmental impact assessment from 2017 and 2018. the design concentrations of such harmful substances (explosives) emitted into the air of the incineration plant in Mogutovo, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, compounds of lead, mercury and dust, seriously violated the MPCs regulated by the orders of the Ministry of Food and Beverage of the Russian Federation of 2019.

The study of the environmental impact assessment documents from 2021 on the emissions of the incineration plant showed that for the indicated explosives, emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere decreased several times. For dust - 27 thousand times, iron oxide - 17 times, hydrogen chloride - 6.2 times, fluorides - 4 times (see table). In general, the total air emissions in the submitted documentation fell 1.8 times, of which solid emissions are planned to be 2.5 times less than before. The expert noted that in the absence of changes in both the morphological and chemical composition of municipal solid waste incinerated at the incineration plant in Mogutovo, as well as changes in both the municipal solid waste incineration technology and the technology for cleaning exhaust gases, the changes in emissions of harmful substances specified in the environmental impact assessment 2021 should be qualified as subscripts...

AGC-1 representative Yelena Yamshchikova, director of the department of ecology and nature management of AGC-1, and representatives of the design company Institute of Design, Ecology and Hygiene LLC explain the changes by the fact that the 2018 environmental impact assessment included data from Hitachi Zosen Inova, and now data from Russian equipment manufacturers. However, from the explanations of AGC-1, it became clear that there are no really operating equipment samples. There are only promises from developers to withstand certain indicators, and the real parameters will become clear only during field tests, which are still far away.

In fact, according to Valery Sosnovtsev, this means that the documentation regarding the assessment of emissions of harmful substances is simply supplemented with entries, made in such a way that formal compliance with the current norms is observed. Assurances about penalties for HZI in case of exceeding the concentration of explosives in the incineration plant emissions in Mogutovo look at least far-fetched. There is no corresponding agreement in the documentation.

In addition, an expert from the Ministry of Natural Resources compared the planned emissions from the incineration plant in Naro-Fominsk with similar emissions from European plants.

"The excess in SO2 emissions is 49 times, for mercury - 27 times, for lead - 23. RT-Invest is building the dirtiest plant in Europe near Naro-Fominsk with an excess of explosive concentrations dozens of times”, - the expert concludes. Ironically, the design air emissions of only one incinerator in Naro-Fominsk correspond to those of all incinerators in an entire country, such as Switzerland.

When analyzing the technology for cleaning waste gases from dioxins from the incinerator in Naro-Fominsk, the expert noted that only the design emissions of only one such incinerator correspond to the emissions of entire countries, such as Germany, Sweden and the USA. Analysis of dioxin removal technologies at the incineration plant in Naro-Fominsk showed their ineffectiveness, which indicates a clear underestimation of the actual dioxin emissions relative to the design ones presented in all environmental impact assessments.

Many comments to the project documentation were expressed by Zoya Andreyevna Pluzhnikova, an environmental expert with many years of experience, a member of the Public Chamber of the Naro-Fominsk urban district. In her opinion, the operation of the incinerator will lead to fatal consequences for nature and residents of adjacent areas.

From the report of Yamshchikova it became clear that AGС-1 still cannot explain where exactly and by whom the wastes of the incineration plant - ash and slag, hazard class 3 and 4, total volume of 1 million tons per year will be neutralized. In the documentation submitted to the hearing, as before, as before, there is a landfill in Tomsk, 3.6 thousand km from Moscow, with a total capacity of 600 thousand tons. The representative of AGC 1 (Alternative Generating Company) named several world vendors of equipment for neutralizing ash and slag, showed a photo of samples, but neither the contract, nor the contractor, nor the construction site of the processing plant was named. There is not even a letter of intent. According to AGС-1 plans, there is a year and a half left before the start of industrial operation of the MSZ. Answering other questions Valeria Sosnovtseva Yamshchikova suggested "to sit down together and look in the documentation, everything can be clarified".

Some statements of AGC 1 representatives and designers were especially striking, for example, the thesis that the incinerator will improve the environmental situation in the Naro-Fominsk urban district, and the statement that the plant will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is known from the conclusions of the public ecological expertise that the project did not take into account the formation of gaseous waste as a result of municipal solid waste burning in the form of greenhouse gases: water vapor and carbon dioxide. Their total amount will be more than 1 million tons / year. Catastrophic emissions of explosives with concentrations significantly exceeding the regulations of the Ministry of Natural Resources of 2019 were also not taken into account.

It is noteworthy that there were no representatives of Hitachi Zosen Inova this time, in contrast to 2018. All publicly named suppliers of the project are Russian companies. The heads of the Naro-Fominsk district administration were not present at the public hearings.

There is still no question of any real monitoring of emissions: monitoring of the state of air, soil and water is planned to be carried out once a year, including emissions of dioxins. No measures of public control and supervision over these procedures are provided. Svetlana Tertyshnaya, chairman of the Public Chamber of the Naro-Fominsk urban district, raised the issue that such control and monitoring of the state of the environment should be implemented, and a state mobile station for monitoring the state of the environment should be located in Naro-Fominsk.

It is not surprising that residents have many complaints about documentation of this quality. Olga Melnik, an activist of the initiative group “No incineration plants in the Moscow region”, - said in her speech that the AGC-1 e-mail, intended for collecting comments, was blocked: the answer comes: “The delivery to the following recipients or groups was not possible. The message could not be delivered because mail for this group comes only from approved senders".

Melnik recalled that it took two years for the courts to obtain technical documentation from AGC-1 (Alternative Generating Company - editor's note) for an independent environmental impact assessment. The results of this examination are negative: the design documentation does not comply with the environmental requirements in force in Russia. The expert commission considers the expected impact on the environment unacceptable, and the implementation of projects impossible. (Full text of the results of the examination) Taking into account all the data provided by Valery Sosnovtsev and the results of the examination, Olga Melnik suggested declaring the hearings invalid, and all those present to remain in the hall until this requirement is fulfilled. The activist herself climbed onto the stage and sat in front of the presidium. The police officers carried her out of the hall in their arms. Later Olga Melnik was released without drawing up a protocol.

The outcome of the hearings was predictable: the farce was recognized as reality, the documentation was reliable, and the hearings were held.