Grigory Pasko: The Joys of Living Next to an Oil Refinery

Sergey Kochkin from Orenburg writes: “Hello Grigory! I ask you to help. The essence of the problem is in the following: around our village of Kubanka of Perevolotsky rayon of Orenburg oblast are found many wells of the Orenburgneft company, not far from our village several kilometres away the Orenburgneft company built a facility for the treatment of oil to remove associated gas. Several years already they are burning the associated gas, moreover they’re doing this in the main early in the morning in the dark time of the day, at first we tried to fight them, all the time [they] promised that any moment now they’ll start to process the gas, to reclaim it and various other bull. Give us a hint, how can one force Orenburgneft to cease the emissions, what organs does one turn to and what is one to do in general. In the attached file and through the link, one can find more detailed information. Thank you.” Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. With a little digging, you can actually find out quite a bit about these environmental problems, including the following quote from one of the articles: “The emission of harmful substances, according to official data, comprised in the year 2006 46896 metric tons, while in 2007 – 47437 metric tons, for 2008 permission has been issued for the emission of 44588 metric tons. Why are neither the organs of state power, nor the controlling services not reacting in any way to this disgrace? Why does the state not love the rural inhabitant so much?”

One wants to object to the author right away: the state does not love the urban resident either. An example: the Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya. I’ll admit it, it’s a riddle to me: how do people live, or more precisely, manage to survive in the Moscow rayon of Kapotnya? Yes-yes, I have in mind the Moscow Oil Refinery situated there. The stench from it is sometimes such that it shoots as far as Mar’ino and Lyublino, Borsovskiye Prudy and Zyablikovo (depending on the direction and the force of the wind). And about Brateyevo there is nothing even to say…The question about taking the oil refinery out beyond the confines of the urban boundary first arose 20 years ago. I well remember recent times too, when the question about its removal was being decided at the level of the government of Moscow.. Remember, there was such a campaign? And at that time they really did manage to take certain industrial enterprises beyond the boundary. But the oil refinery – a sacred cow – remained.And continues to poison the people.Which way are the nature-protection organs looking? Sometimes – in the direction of Kapotnya. The last time, judging by official reports, they looked there two years ago. On the site of the municipal authority one can read that a check of compliance with nature-protection legislation was conducted at OAO «Moskovsky neftepererabatyvayushchiy zavod» [the Moscow Oil Refinery] by the Lyublino inter-rayon procuracy in March of the year 2008 in conjunction with the Moscow inter-regional territorial Administration of technical and ecological oversight. Violations of nature-protection legislation were identified in the course of the check. A submission on the identified violations was introduced by inter-rayon procuracy to director-general of the refinery S.D. Netesanov, as well as a decree being issued on the initiation of a case on administrative violation of the law under art. 8.21 KoAGT RF and material being directed for examination to the MTU of Rostekhnadzor. The decree was examined by the indicated organ, 23.04.2007 based on the results OAO «Moskovsky NPZ» was held to administrative liability in the form of a fine in an amount of 20,000 rub.Ye-e-es, 20 thousand rubles for the director of the oil refinery, and all the more so for the shareholders of the refinery – is fri-i-ightening money. They will literally go bust from such a fine. But seriously: this sum – it’s not serious! It needs to be a thousand times more. And director Netesanov and all the shareholders of the oil refinery need also to be sentenced to lifelong residence close to the oil refinery. Preferably, together with those officials from the Moscow government who just can’t bring themselves to decide to remove the refinery beyond the confines of the residential zones of the capital.True, evil tongues assert that the officials have nothing to do with this. More precisely, only one official «has to do». And also: the officials do not live in Kapotnya. And in general they don’t live in the southeast of the capital and of Moscow oblast. Can you guess why?…To Sergey I wrote that, in my opinion as a journalist, one needs to do this: write letters to the nature-protection procuracy, turn to the ecological police, turn to the courts, conduct rallies and pickets… Don’t vote for the local power. In short, fight. Like the defenders of the Khimki forest are fighting. Like the defenders of Baikal are fighting. Like the ecologists on Sakhalin and in Sochi are fighting… I understand that to live in a country of eternal fighting with the fight for the fight is hard and one does not want very much to do this. But we’ve got no other country. Although there could easily be other rulers.Photo: The Moscow oil refinery. (source)