"Volgograd-Ecopress" reports chlorine release near Volgograd

On January 13, residents of the Svetloyarsk District, Volgograd Region, which is bordering on the Southern Industrial Zone of Volgograd, again felt a stable and suffocating smell of chlorine. The officials of local "Rosprirodnadzor" (Russian Federal Agency for Nature Protection) have no data yet about the nature and volume of release.

Let us remind you that at night on January 9 residents of the Krasnoarmeiskiy District of Volgograd also reported that they felt some suffocating smell of petroleum products. This information was confirmed by Mikhail Epikhin, the head of the Department of Information Policy of the Administration of Volgograd. Experts of the Municipal Establishment (ME) "City Department for Analytical and Operative Control of Environment Quality," localized the source of the smell near the "Tatyanka" washing and steaming station. No results of supervisors' reaction were reported.

"On January 13, the wind direction was changing from north to north-west, so the fumes could possibly originate from Shops Nos. 27 and 30 of the "Caustic" Factory, located close to the border of the Svetloyarsk District," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Elena Vasileva, Director of the Information Centre "Volgograd-Ecopress".

She expressed her regret that ecological services had reacted to residents' complaints only in several hours. The Volgograd regional analytical laboratory took air samples only after two o'clock in the afternoon.

Igor Kuznetsov, Deputy Head of the Department of Information Policy of the Administration of Volgograd, said that they received no information about examination results, because the complaint came from Svetly Yar.

"However, I can say that the place was visited by a joint group of experts from the Svetloyarsk "Rosprirodnadzor" and Ecological Prosecutor's Office," said Igor Kuznetsov.

Alexei Sergeev, the head of the division of ecological control of the Volgograd Regional "Rosprirodnadzor", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the laboratory had not yet examined the air samples. The results are expected next week only.

"On January 13, we conducted ecological monitoring both in the territory of our enterprise and in the buffer zone. No exceeding of MPCs (maximum permissible concentrations) of contaminants was detected," said Igor Poddubny, Deputy Chief Engineer for Ecology of the "Caustic" Factory. According to his version, that day was windless; and Svetly Yar, from where the complaint had come, is eight kilometres off the factory, and no cloud of chlorine, "if any," could reach the district centre.