Volgograd residents demand to investigate discharge of chemical substances into atmosphere

After the discharge of chemical substances from the Volgograd enterprise "Caustic", city residents demanded from the authorities to bring the guilty persons to justice.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on September 23, in Volgograd, a fire occurred at a warehouse of chlorinated products at the plant "Caustic". On the same day, three other fires occurred in the city, including two large-scale inflammations of reeds and a fire at the Kirov landfill. The Volgograd residents have reported strong smog and a smell of chlorine in the air. In some districts of Volgograd, the concentrations of harmful substances had exceeded the permissible norms.

On September 23, Internet users started collecting signatures under the online petition "We demand an objective investigation into chemical emissions at the plant of the Open Joint-Stock Company (OJSC) 'Caustic'". The petition was posted at www.change.org by Irina Glinyanova, Director of the autonomous non-commercial organization "Regional Centre of Civil Environmental Initiatives".

On September 29, according to Irina Glinyanova, the petition with signatures of 486 people was handed over to the reception room of the Governor. Besides, according to Irina Glinyanova, earlier, the leaders of ecological NGOs have prepared an appeal to the authorities concerning the need to inform the population about the nature of emissions. On September 25, ecologists brought the petition to Mikhail Novikov, the acting head of the local administration of the "Rosprirodnadzor" (Russian Federal Agency for Nature Supervision).

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.