[Summary translation prepared by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre].

Kachkanar's Black Hole: How Evraz's enterprise pollutes an entire town, 19 February 2021
Rosprirodnadzor is planning to levy an impressive fine on Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant for polluting the land with waste, which happened more than 30 years ago. But the plant pollutes not only the land, it also negatively affects the ecology of the town of Kachkanar, and manages to receive benefits for it....
On 19 March, the Arbitration Court of the Sverdlovsk Region is due to hold a hearing on the claim of the Department of the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resource Usage in the Ural Federal District against Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant, which is part of Evraz. The environmental agency is demanding to recover over 240 million roubles from the company....
The negative impact of Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant on the environment is most likely not limited to the ingress of tailings into the soil. "The main types of impact of Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant on the components of the environment are disturbance of lands and soils by mining operations; placement of overburden on the ground surface when tailings are stored in a special storage facility; wastewater discharges into surface water bodies; emissions of pollutants into the air from stationary and mobile sources, further emissions during mining operations," Natalya Sokolova, an ecologist and chairman of the board of the ANO Ravnopravie (engaged in environmental support of enterprises).
The residents of Kachkanar feel the impact of Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant even if they live quite far from its facilities. "If you open the windows in my flat, which is located at a distance of about 4 kilometres from the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant, you can immediately see that the entire window sill is black from the dust flying from its enrichment plant," says a deputy of the Kachkanar City Duma Gabbas Dautov. - In the city one should wear masks without any connection with whether there is coronavirus or not"....

Simultaneously with the benefits, the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant was provided with land to increase the area of ​​the tailings dump, despite the fact that it thereby moved closer to the houses of the village of Valerianovsk near Kachkanar. Gabbas Dautov connects this controversial situation with the possible lobbying of Evraz, which owns the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant...