In defense of Khopr
In defense of Khopr

Video: In defense of Khopr

Video: In defense of Khopr
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By the decision of the Government of the Russian Federation, signed by Vladimir Putin on December 26, 2011, hazardous development of copper-nickel deposits is planned in the Voronezh Region.

Elanskoe and Elkinskoe ore occurrences have been known since the 60s of the last century. And in 1977, the Soviet government decided not to develop the ores available there due to the agro-industrial profile of the region, the complexity of the occurrence of minerals and the proximity of nature conservation facilities.

Today it is planned to build several ore mines, an enrichment plant producing copper-nickel concentrate, a storage facility for mining waste, a reservoir, warehouses for finished products, and a freight railway terminal.

The turnover of agricultural products in the Voronezh region in 2011 exceeded $ 3 billion. According to preliminary data, the production of copper-nickel concentrate assumes turnover by an order of magnitude lower, while the quality of traditional products of the Voronezh region will significantly decrease. Dozens of agricultural enterprises that find themselves in the zone of industrial pollution will suffer.

The standard of black soil from the area of planned ore mining was exhibited at the World Exhibition of Technological and Scientific Achievements in 1889.

Against the backdrop of the expected global food crisis, the decision to develop non-ferrous metals in the center of the agro-industrial region is more than short-sighted.

In 2010, the President of the Russian Federation D. A. Medvedev signed the "Doctrine of Food Security of the Russian Federation", which was triggered by the global food crisis of 2008-2009. The decision to start copper-nickel development in the Central Black Earth Region contradicts the main provision of the Doctrine - the need to provide every citizen of the country with a sufficient amount of safe food, mainly of its own production, and can have serious negative consequences against the backdrop of the expected global food crisis.

Alexander Novikov, President of the Institute for Humanitarian and Economic Problems of Food Security, one of the scientists who oppose nickel mining:

“The Central Black Earth Region of Russia is one of those places where only agricultural production can and should be carried out, only agricultural residents can make basic decisions about what kind of production will be there and what they will do there. Tens of thousands of people, small producers, farmers, peasants will be forced to redesign their activities. This actually means the forced relocation of a part of the population of this region to other places of residence”.

This is especially important on the eve of the G20 and G8 forums, which will be held in Russia in 2013-2014. In conditions when Russia, being a northern country, possesses unique black soil in this territory, everything must be done to prevent the placement of dirty industry in this area."

Undoubtedly, colossal damage will be inflicted on the hydrosystem of the region, which will negatively affect the entire Azov basin. The Khoper River, the purest and most important tributary of the Don, flows in the immediate vicinity of the ore occurrences. The ore deposits are located directly under the Khopra tributary - the Savala River and also under 6 aquifers, the lower of which is an ancient sea - a layer of saturated bromine-iodine brine with a length of at least 50 km. When liquid leaks to the surface from this water basin, salinization of soils and surface waters is inevitable. The use of water from the aquifers will entail the crushing of Khopra and the partial destruction of the floodplain Khopersky reserve. And a significant outflow of water for technical needs is inevitable: more than 40 million tons of water will be required annually for the operation of the processing plant.

The Khopersky Nature Reserve is a fundamentally important nature conservation area in the region and is located 15 km from the explored ore occurrences. The reserve has the status of a key ornithological territory of European importance; it is home to the Red Book white-tailed eagle, peregrine falcon, golden eagle, bustard and little bustard. The reserve gained international fame thanks to the preservation of a relict animal - the Russian desman. In recent years, the number of desman in the Voronezh region has sharply decreased, primarily due to massive uncontrolled poaching in water bodies. Therefore, the role of the Khopersky Nature Reserve in the preservation of the desman has increased many times over. Today, the scientific team of the reserve, with the assistance of WWF, is working to clarify the number of these animals living in the Khopra floodplain.

Also in close proximity to the ore occurrence is the Telemanovsky forest - a relic forest with an area of 40,000 hectares, with a predominance of oak, including 200-500 year old specimens. This forest zone is of globally significant value due to the extreme rarity of natural oak communities of such an area.

All procedures related to planning the development of these deposits are carried out in the informational secrecy mode: the justification for the announcement of the tender is not covered, information on the conduct and results of environmental assessments is not published or provided, the population of the Voronezh Region and neighboring constituent entities of the Russian Federation affected by the project is not involved in a timely manner, his position is not taken into account when assessing all types of project risks.

In accordance with Russian legislation, before making a decision on the construction of any industrial facility, environmental expertise and public hearings on this issue are required. These important procedures have been postponed to the stage of consideration of the project for the construction of a mining and processing plant. However, no expert examination of the feasibility of the construction itself was carried out.

The tender for the development of the field was held on May 22, 2012 with a huge number of violations. The main one is that the winner does not have its own capacities for smelting metallic nickel - a parameter determined by the tender documentation as the main requirement for the tender participant. The environmental examination, ordered at the initiative of the government of the Voronezh region, according to the available documents, was carried out by a certain specialist from Irkutsk in 14 days without visiting the places of ore occurrences and is a theoretical document with a conclusion adjusted to the ordered result - the feasibility of mining in agricultural areas.

Against the background of such a number of forgeries, investments in the project for additional exploration of ore occurrences and their development are already coming in, and there is no reason to expect the process to stop without radical intervention of a wide circle of the public and the top leadership of Russia. Without this, formal environmental control procedures will be performed at the same level of compliance with reality as the preliminary examination, with the same degree of legality with which the competition itself was held.

At the same time, even under the terms of the competition, the license for development is given to the winner for 25 years, which provides freedom in choosing the richest ore. This will make the deposit absolutely unattractive for further commercial use. And the winner of the tender is not burdened with obligations for the subsequent maintenance of production facilities and fields in accordance with environmental standards.

The situation is aggravated by the complexity of the occurrence of minerals: the upper part of the ore body is located under a 300-meter layer of sedimentary rocks, it itself goes vertically down to a depth of more than a kilometer, which makes mining more expensive and, accordingly, affects the distribution of funds not in favor of environmental costs.

The population of the territories within a radius of about 70 km from ore occurrences is seriously concerned about the problem of the planned mining of non-ferrous metals near their settlements. In just 3 months, more than 30,000 signatures were collected against copper-nickel developments. A series of thousands-strong rallies took place in two district cities of the Voronezh region - Novokhopersk and Borisoglebsk, as well as in the city of Uryupinsk, located downstream of the Khopra river in the Volgograd region. The rallies attracted from 3 to 10 thousand participants, which was up to half of the population of each city! A convoy against the extraction of non-ferrous metals, which drove from Uryupinsk and Novokhopersk to Borisoglebsk for a rally on June 3, gathered about 400 vehicles and stretched for 10 km. The Cossacks, organizations of the entire political spectrum united and announced that they would in any form oppose the work associated with the extraction of non-ferrous metals in the Voronezh region.

The situation in the Voronezh region has already been taken under control by Russian public, political and human rights organizations. Environmentalists unanimously acknowledge the extreme danger of the project, WWF and Greenpeace expressed extreme concern over the decision to extract non-ferrous metals near nature conservation sites, in densely populated areas. A number of State Duma deputies sent letters to the government and the president, demanding to cancel the unilateral decision on the need to carry out work on the extraction of non-ferrous metals in the Voronezh region. Scientists and human rights activists made statements to the President of Russia and the Governor of the Voronezh Region, demanding to cancel the results of the competition and veto the dangerous development of deposits.

Related videos:

  • On economic feasibility and environmental hazards (Movement "In Defense of Khoper")
  • Justification of the environmental hazard (A. E. Silina, hydrobiologist, senior researcher at the Belogorye Nature Reserve)
  • On the danger of nickel mining - Davydenko V. V., Senior Researcher, Khopersky State Natural Reserve

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