Prosecutor's office of North Ossetia opens administrative proceedings against "Electrozinc"

The prosecutor's office of the Industrial Municipal District of Vladikavkaz, the capital of North Ossetia, has opened an administrative case against the "Electrozinc" factory in the context of the latter's emissions of sulphur dioxide to the atmosphere on October 5; also a presentation was passed on violation of ecological legislation.

The district prosecutor's office conducted, together with experts of local "Rosprirodnadzor" (Federal Service for Nature Supervision) and "Rospotrebnadzor", Federal State Institution "Centre for Laboratory Analysis and Technical Measurements" for the South Federal District (SFD), checks of observance by the OJSC "Electrozinc" of the legislation on protecting the environment.

As reported by the press service of the prosecutor's office, the checks have established that "on October 5 presumably because of breaching the technological process at performing works related with commissioning of zinc facility shops, a volley emission of sulphur dioxide took place, the excess of which, by the results of the laboratory chemical analysis, made 4.9 times the exposure limit. The above excess of the chemical substance in the atmospheric air was observed for two days."

Besides, on October 12, also because emission of gases through the chimney of the sulphur-acid shop of the "Electrozinc", sulphur trioxide was emitted into the environment, the content of which exceeded the exposure limit by 23.8 times, and also sulphur dioxide was emitted at 1.8-fold excess.

Besides, the checks demonstrated that the enterprise fails to plan and actually perform any actions to capture and neutralize emissions of harmful substances into the atmospheric air, or to reduce or exclude such emissions.

The prosecutor's office has noted that the pretext for the above off-schedule checks was in numerous applications of citizens and members of public organizations, including through mass media, where people complained of health problems because of accidental emissions of hazardous substances into the atmosphere by the OJSC "Electrozinc".