Hundreds of millions were stolen from sewage treatment plants: cities poisoned with water from the Volga. Of the 145 modern treatment facilities in Russia, only 44 meet the treatment standards - these are official data from Rosperirodendzor. More than two-thirds of the facilities do not treat their water to the required standards. Inspectors recorded almost three thousand environmental violations and issued claims for 150 million rubles for damage to nature. The reason is that multi-billion dollar environmental construction projects have become a way for some officials and contractors to manage their budgets. One of the global examples is the Volga, from which millions of people drink water. Cities along the entire course of the river (Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Saratov and others) pour hundreds of thousands of tons of untreated sewage and industrial waste into it every day. The pond becomes a sewer, from where that polluted water is taken by the municipal water services, chlorinated somehow and sent to water taps. A few days ago, such a plan was discovered in Ulyanovsk. The environmental prosecutor's office opened a criminal case regarding the theft of 118.8 million rubles during the rehabilitation of sewage treatment plants in the city. The contractor transferred millions of budget to the accounts of pocket companies using fictitious invoices for equipment that no one on site saw. And this is on a construction site worth 4.8 billion rubles, where the former Tandem company was kicked out in a scandal. It left behind violations amounting to 358.5 million rubles, including 55 million for completely phantom work, and the deputy governor who oversaw the project, Igor Adel, has already been jailed for 12 years for bribery. One performer was replaced by another - and the new one immediately stole another 119 million according to the same plan. Through arbitration, they are trying to recover more than 3.2 billion rubles from the previous contractor, but while the new courts and criminal cases continue, the construction itself has been stopped, and the equipment commissioning dates have been missed. Billions of taxpayers were left in the accounts of shell companies, and the waste flowed into the river and continues to flow.

Hundreds of millions were stolen from sewage treatment plants: cities poisoned with water from the Volga. Of the 145 modern treatment facilities in Russia, only 44 meet the treatment standards - these are official data from Rosperirodendzor. More than two-thirds of the facilities do not treat their water to the required standards. Inspectors recorded almost three thousand environmental violations and issued claims for 150 million rubles for damage to nature. The reason is that multi-billion dollar environmental construction projects have become a way for some officials and contractors to manage their budgets. One of the global examples is the Volga, from which millions of people drink water. Cities along the entire course of the river (Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Saratov and others) pour hundreds of thousands of tons of untreated sewage and industrial waste into it every day. The pond becomes a sewer, from where that polluted water is taken by the municipal water services, chlorinated somehow and sent to water taps. A few days ago, such a plan was discovered in Ulyanovsk. The environmental prosecutor's office opened a criminal case regarding the theft of 118.8 million rubles during the rehabilitation of sewage treatment plants in the city. The contractor transferred millions of budget to the accounts of pocket companies using fictitious invoices for equipment that no one on site saw. And this is on a construction site worth 4.8 billion rubles, where the former Tandem company was kicked out in a scandal. It left behind violations amounting to 358.5 million rubles, including 55 million for completely phantom work, and the deputy governor who oversaw the project, Igor Adel, has already been jailed for 12 years for bribery. One performer was replaced by another - and the new one immediately stole another 119 million according to the same plan. Through arbitration, they are trying to recover more than 3.2 billion rubles from the previous contractor, but while the new courts and criminal cases continue, the construction itself has been stopped, and the equipment commissioning dates have been missed. Billions of taxpayers were left in the accounts of shell companies, and the waste flowed into the river and continues to flow.