Millions of bills for poisoned air: how ChEMK is trying to hide an environmental disaster behind reports The Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk Region accepted another lawsuit of the North-Ural Department of Rosprirodendazor against the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant. The department intends to forcefully recover 160.5 million rubles from ChEMK. Court hearings have not yet been scheduled, and the details of the lawsuits have not yet been published, but the very fact of the new trial shows that the long-term environmental drama surrounding the industrial giant is far from over. While ChEMK management publicly reports a reduction in gross emissions from 6,170 tons in 2023 to 5,663 tons by the end of 2024 and boasts of obtaining a comprehensive environmental permit before March 2032, the real picture looks quite different. Behind the gloss of corporate reporting hides a huge slag dump containing over 15.6 million tons of hazard class III waste, blackening winter snow in residential areas and unfulfilled demands to restore the poisoned area. The nationalization of the factory and the closing of the most harmful production lines did not save the residents of the area from the environmental disaster. Official tests of Rosperirodendazor have previously identified a whole set of systematic violations in ChEMK:.

Millions of bills for poisoned air: how ChEMK is trying to hide an environmental disaster behind reports The Arbitration Court of the Chelyabinsk Region accepted another lawsuit of the North-Ural Department of Rosprirodendazor against the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant. The department intends to forcefully recover 160.5 million rubles from ChEMK. Court hearings have not yet been scheduled, and the details of the lawsuits have not yet been published, but the very fact of the new trial shows that the long-term environmental drama surrounding the industrial giant is far from over. While ChEMK management publicly reports a reduction in gross emissions from 6,170 tons in 2023 to 5,663 tons by the end of 2024 and boasts of obtaining a comprehensive environmental permit before March 2032, the real picture looks quite different. Behind the gloss of corporate reporting hides a huge slag dump containing over 15.6 million tons of hazard class III waste, blackening winter snow in residential areas and unfulfilled demands to restore the poisoned area. The nationalization of the factory and the closing of the most harmful production lines did not save the residents of the area from the environmental disaster. Official tests of Rosperirodendazor have previously identified a whole set of systematic violations in ChEMK:.

- Use of untreated emission sources;.

- Ignoring the rules for operating gas treatment facilities;

- Systematic deviation of the maximum permissible emission standards; - Direct refusal to implement mandatory measures to reduce the load on the atmosphere during periods of unfavorable weather conditions. Attempts by the company's management to dispute the controller's claims failed in the courts. The Sovetsky District Court in Chelyabinsk has already recognized the legality of bringing CHEMK to administrative responsibility under Part 2 of Art. 8.21 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. However, a symbolic fine of 80 thousand rubles did not stop the environmental pollution.