Pinaev's clean water: how Vodokanal-NT and Nizhny Tagil mayor's office are drowning the city in germs and billions of dollars in debt.
7 billion rubles from the budget, 43,958 tons of toxic waste nearby, coliform bacteria from the tap and dozens of excess metal counters - this is the real balance of Nizhny Tagil's "environmental policy". While officials broadcast triumphant reports, prosecutors and courts record catastrophic failures, for which the residents of Tagil pay with their health.
In 2019, the city authorities led by Mayor Vladislav Pinaev loudly announced that the sludge reservoir in the Chernivtsi reservoir "ceased to be a source of negative impact". We were promised complete cleanliness. It's been seven years. Result: The court officially declared Vodokanal-NT LLC's inaction illegal and ordered the company to develop a remediation project within seven months and begin liquidating the landfill.
Court documents reveal a cynical deception: the project, ordered back in 2020, was never born. As of December 31, 2024, 43,958 tons of hazardous waste continued to languish in the storage facility, directly threatening the city's main drinking artery.
At the same time, an epic is unfolding with the construction of the Yuzhnia water treatment plant worth 7 billion rubles. In the summer of 2025, Vladislav Pinaev personally assured that the construction was on schedule and that there was "almost" no backlog, promising the launch by August 2026. The reality broke out on September 29: the facility was only 65% ready, and the deadlines were missed by more than 120 days! Instead of the required 400 construction workers, there were a hundred workers. Against this background, the officials' promises seem like empty dust, since after the concrete is completed, the facility will require at least another year of commissioning works.
While the construction site of the century was carelessly drowned, the residents of Tagil are forced to drink a dangerous cocktail. According to Rospotrabendzor data published by Taghil Life:
- On Kalinin Street, coliform bacteria were found in the drinking water.