[Translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

Environmentalists again found violations at the Kazzinc enterprise, 19 July 2022

At a specially organized briefing, the head of the environmental department of Eastern Kazakhstan, Rauan Turarov, spoke about the results of an inspection of the giant of the regional industry - UKMC Kazzinc LLP. According to the state ecologist, the total gross emissions in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk are 158 thousand tons of pollutants per year...

The largest share of the formation of negative atmospheric air is produced by the Ust-Kamenogorsk metallurgical complex Kazzinc LLP. Its share, according to experts, is 45 percent of the total emissions of enterprises...At the request of the population and the prosecutor's office, the main air pollutants are under constant control...[U]nscheduled inspections are carried out if a corresponding request is received. This, according to the deputy head of the East Kazakhstan Department of Ecology, explains the frequency of inspections of Kazzinc specifically, in comparison with other large enterprises located in the city.

- In 2021, enterprises were fined 50 million tenge. After that, they spent about two billion on upgrading equipment. But this did not help to completely avoid emission levels violations. On the other hand, such emissions are not constantly recorded, but we carry out measurements all the time. After preventive control in relation to UKMC, administrative protocols in the amount of ten million tenge were drawn up on the fact of identified violations, Turarov said.

According to him, specialists carried out instrumental measurements for more than a month and established excess emissions into the environment. Now the violator needs a plan of environmental measures to reduce harmful emissions into the air to improve the environmental situation of the city and prevent similar violations in the future.