Vodokanal, enough rake-offs from the Neva!

Toxic danger marks and warning signs were put on 5 major effluent discharges. One illegal pipe, located 200 m upstream the main city drinking water intake and just opposite City Governor office was marked with 2 m tall buoy.

In the end of May 2008 Greenpeace experts collected samples of mixed industrial and municipal wastewaters from 6 sewers belongs to Vodokanal. Samples were taken from sewers discharging to Neva river and its tributaries: Okhta, Okkervil,  Izhora, Murzinka and Slavyanka. One control sample was collected from Kolpino wastewater treatment plant discharge. In all without an exception drains, concentrations of toxic substances exceeded admissible norms in tens, and in certain cases - in hundreds times. Substances like mercury, oil products, lead, acetone, chloroform and many other dangerous substances were identified in all samples. These results made the ground for Environmental prosecutor office investigation of Vodokanal of St. Petersburg which proceeds till now. 

"Vodokanal positions itself as environmentally oriented company; however investigation, made by Greenpeace as well as official data, has shown that this state enterprise is the major infringer of the water protection legislation in Saint Petersburg and biggest emitter of hazardous compounds into Neva River, its tributaries and Gulf of Finland. Our main task now is to give to St. Petersburg inhabitants independent and a trustworthy information about conditions of Neva river and who can change this such a bad situation", - Greenpeace spokesperson Dmitry Artamonov said. «We also want to warn townspeople about danger because there are no warning signs on toxic drains. Frequently  people are fishing or even swimming near this discharges, usually they even don't know that there is a toxic drain next to them.», - Artamonov added 

It is a paradoxical situation with industrial waste water discharge in the city now. It is more economically feasible for water users not to install industrial waste water pre-treatment facilities but to transfer it to Vodokanal sewage system for low price. But it is also feasible that such a situation is profitable for Vodokanal. By dumping part of contaminated wastewaters without any treatment company spent nothing for this. The rest of wastewaters goes to large municipal wastewater treatment plants which are not designed to treat highly contaminated industrial wastewaters. If client exceeded maximum permissible levels set up by Vodokanal, the penalty will be imposed, accordingly the more enterprises pollute Neva River, the more funds Vodokanal receives. 

«Vodokanal has everything to change the current situation. City owned monopoly, in accordance with adopted regulations, can stop the use of its sewers for enterprises whose wastewaters contain dangerous substances in concentrations exceed current norms and by this reason can not be treated properly by Vodokanal wastewater treatment plants. But for not clear reasons Vodokanal authorities are not implementing this regulations», - added Alexey Kiselev, Greenpeace Russia Toxics program head.

Same day one year ago Greenpeace activists presented to Saint-Petersburg Governor Valentina Matvienko water samples collected from Neva river and its tributaries - Izhora, Okkervil and Okhta, water patrol results and offer support and cooperation to clean up the river. Governor was also offered to take part in Greenpeace water patrol to see the back side of Neva river which is hidden from millions tourists and inhabitants. But Governor did not spent time to save the only drinking water source for 5 millions Petersburgers.  

Later on, 15000 St. Petersburg residents joined Greenpeace appeal to protect Neva River. In its response to Greenpeace demands, the city committee for natural resources and environment protection clearly showed that St. Petersburg government don't see this problem and not ready to solve it. In the letter addressed to Greenpeace, authorities stated that only national government is responsible for water control, but city bureaucrats skipped and perhaps forgot that major Neva river polluter - State Unitary Enterprise Vodokanal of St. Petersburg is the city property.

To protect people of St. Petersburg Greenpeace made an open letter to Vodokanal of St. Petersburg head Mr. Felix Karmazinov.

«We understand that existing system of interaction with your clients is economically feasible for the enterprise headed by you. However, we are assured that the primary goal of State Unitary Enterprise Vodokanal of St. Petersburg as the state enterprise, there should be not a profit extraction, but improvement of ecological conditions of the city rivers and the Gulf of Finland, and also care about health of Petersburgers. We sincerely hope that the Vodokanal, positioning itself as the socially responsible and environmentally oriented enterprise will make its best efforts to prevent discharge of untreated wastewaters into Neva River and the Gulf of Finland and will stop receiving industrial discharged waters which cannot be treated to safe level", - the letter reads.