"Norilsk-Nickel gives profoundly untrue information"

The letter is signed by co-chairs of Barents Euro-Arctic Council’s Working Group’s subgroup on Hotspot Exclusion, Åke Mikaelsson from Sweden’s Environmental Protection Agency and Andrey Peshkov from Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Last week, Kola GMK’s director Aleksei Tolstykh told the audience at a seminar that the Severonickel plant in Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula was assigned from the so-called red zone to yellow zone, as per Hot Spot classification by the Nordic Environmental Finance Corporation (NEFCO) and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP).

The statement, refered to by the Murmansk-based Bellona group was a repeat of information from Norilsk-Nickel earlier this summer published on the web-portal of the company and given to regional media on the Kola Peninsula, like the Murmansk based b-port.com.

In the statement, Norilsk-Nickel wrote: “As a result of comprehensive analysis of the environmental performance of Kola GMK, as well as the results of NEFCO and representatives of the Barents Region’s visit to the industrial site in Monchegorsk, it was decided to change the environmental status of the city.” The statement continues with claiming that the international environmental experts commend the work of Kola GMK to reduce the impact on the environment.

Environmental Hot Spots in the Barents Region are ecological sites that have been polluted and pose a health risk to those who live near them, either because of the direct impact or potential to poison the drinking water or other food chain.

The letter from the Barents Environmental Working Group is very critical to the misinformation from Norilsk-Nickel:

“Publication that it should have been taken a decision by the Working Group to change the Hot Spot status for Severonickel from red to yellow is not in consistent with reality and has triggered negative attention both outside Russia and among Russian environmental groups,” reads the letter that BarentsObserver has got a copy of. The letter is dated November 1st.

The letter, which is addressed to Norilsk-Nickel and the administration of Murmansk Oblast, continues: “The information posted on the web-portal of Norilsk-Nickel is profoundly untrue and leads to misinterpretation of the actual situation and the status of Severonickel in the Barents Region’s Hot Spot list.”

The letter ends with calling on Norilsk Nickel to contribute to publishing objective information about the actual environmental situation.

On Wednesday next week, the environmental ministers of the Barents Region, minus Norway’s Erik Solheim, will meet in Umeå to discuss how the work to eliminate the Hot Spots in the Barents Region should be continued.