Petersburg's residents are searching for who stirs up the waters in the Gulf of Finland

Alexander Dybin, St. Petersburg

In St. Petersburg, they are investigating the flow of muddy water that enters the Gulf of Finland from the alluvial territories on Vasilyevsky Island. The flow of water with suspension is visible in the pictures from space, in addition, the activists found the pipes themselves through which this water flows. As Igor Pirogov, a resident of Vasilyevsky Island, who actively opposes the Northern Alluvium project, told Novye Izvestia, it was satellite images that helped to detect suspicious drains. According to him, the experts studied the images in order to trace the impact on the water area of the work on the creation of an artificial land plot of the Northern alluvium, and noticed that there are muddy water flows from the territory of the Southern alluvium, which was created long ago and is being actively built up. Novye Izvestia has already written about the situation with alluvial land in St. Petersburg. For several years now, the Southern Alluvium project has been implemented, an artificial plot of land has been created, and several residential complexes have been built. Now the right to build up vacant plots on the alluvium has been received by the LSR company. The northern alluvium is the twin brother of the southern one. This site is going to create and build up the same "LSR". Active work on the creation of a piece of land began this year, which caused a storm of discontent among the residents of neighboring houses, who are annoyed by noise and dust. In addition, residents point to environmental risks from such an expansion of land, a situation may arise when, with the Neva dam closed, there will be nowhere to go and this will lead to flooding. Residents filed a lawsuit demanding to stop the project, in addition, they regularly gather for “tea parties”, collect signatures and write appeals to deputies and officials.

According to Igor Pirogov, residents found pipes from which a turbid liquid flows. They are located near the sand storage, which was organized by the LSR company. A few weeks ago, the company announced the start of the warehouse and offered to buy sand. At the same time, public hearings, which should secure this site for a sand storage, are just underway and no decisions have been made.

“I applied to Rosprirodnadzor twice, pointed out that the hearings had not yet been completed, and activities were already underway,” Pirogov said, “specialists from the federal department went to the site, took water for analysis, but they didn’t say who was doing it, they allegedly establish. Although they themselves are holding hearings on a sand warehouse a few meters from this place. Everyone knows who owns the site and conducts activities there. But the culprit has not yet been identified. One more question, how can production activities be carried out on a site allocated for residential development? You might think, you might think, muddy water is sand, but it is very harmful for the fauna and for the migration of fish. As far as I know, it is impossible to carry out such work at all now”.

According to Rosprirodnadzor, an inspection was carried out on the spot, but the culprit has not yet been identified. At the same time, in its message, the agency mentioned another company that is completing the construction of a residential complex, under the windows of which a sand warehouse has grown.

“The information on the pollution of the Gulf of Finland from the southwestern side of Vasilevsky Island in the area of the residential complex GloraX Aura Vasileostrovskiy under construction has been verified. During the inspection, 9 pipes were found, through which cloudy brown sewage is discharged into the water area. Probably with sand content. Specialists of TsLATI check drains for the presence of harmful substances, - the message of Rosprirodnadzor says, - inspectors of Rosprirodnadzor turned to utilities to identify those responsible for the violation. Based on the results, action will be taken".

In the meantime, residents continue to fight with the Northern Alluvium. So, according to the activist, the materials of the public ecological expertise, which gave a negative conclusion on the project, were attached to the court. In particular, the experts noted that during the creation of the Northern alluvium, there will definitely be runoff into the reservoir, but they are not taken into account in the design documentation, as well as the payment for their discharge.

“The next court session is scheduled for October 20,” said Igor Pirogov, “we are now actively sending out public examination materials to the deputies of the Legislative Assembly and the State Duma. For example, it was revealed that the company does not plan to pay for effluents, it was considered that it is more than 1 billion rubles, there is no data on these effluents in the project, although the alluvium technology assumes them”.