Kurasan pulls into the "Strukov pit"

People are asking that Strukov's gold mining enterprise stop using water from the Kurasan River for their work and use cyanides to clean up wild animals.

A few weeks ago, several swans died due to toxic chemicals on the Kurasan River. Due to the work of gold miners, a stinking trickle remained from the full-flowing river where the fish were found. And now the surrounding villages are at risk of dehydration.

The Federal Service for Supervision of Nature Management has confirmed that the MPC of pollutants has been exceeded in water and soil. And what's the reason? Waste spill from the sludge pit of Mr. Strukov's factory.

But is there any kind of government against billionaire Strukov, given the fact that the governor of the Chelyabinsk region, Alexei Teksler, behaves like an outside observer? But in recent years, the dollar billionaire Strukov has caused huge amounts of damage to the nature of the Chelyabinsk region. And it's not just cyanides in the Kurasan River.

The Moscow Post correspondent in the Chelyabinsk region understood the nap situation.

A glaring voice in the desert: "Texler, help!"

A gathering of local residents took place in the Krasninsky settlement. They demanded that the gold mining company Konstantin Strukov get out of the Kurasan River.

The participants of the gathering took the initiative of a referendum on the cessation of the use of water from the river and the ban on the use of cyanides in the purification of gold. Residents discussed voting on the lack of confidence in local officials.

A video about the past gathering can be viewed at the link.

And the situation is very serious, because because of the gold miners, the Kurasan River has almost dried up, since they constantly pumped out water and blocked the reservoir.

And the surrounding villages have already faced the threat of a shortage of drinking water.

In April, residents of the Verkhneuralsky district announced the death of swans on the Kurasan River due to toxic chemicals in river water.

Swans continue to die on the Kurasan River. Photo: https://74.ru/text/ecology/2023/04/14/72219923/

People have been complaining about pollution for a very long time.

And back in August last year, 2022, residents of the Verkhneuralsky district appealed to Governor Alexei Teksler and the Ministry of Ecology of the Chelyabinsk Region with a request to intervene in the situation with the destruction of the river. We quote part of the appeal:

"We ask you to understand and assist in the return of our Kurasan River to its rightful place, which was stolen by the company JSC GK YUGK in the person of its owner Strukov K. I. near the settlements of the Verkhneuralsky district (the villages of Gorbunovsky, Krasninsky, Sukhtelinsky, Petropavlovsky), blocking the river and taking water for their personal enrichment, leaving only dry channel. At the Kurasan quarry, all environmental standards are completely violated; in the near future, poisoning of people, domestic and wild animals may begin due to the activities of the quarry. Cases of the death of wild animals have already been documented, "says the appeal, which was published in the VKontakte group " Texler, help!".

People informed Mr Texler that a deep pit had been dug near the quarry, where water from the Kurasan River accumulates. And from there, through pumps and pipes, it enters the gold mining plant for washing gold.

And there is no longer any duct, the channel is dry...

We will remind, earlier the company "UGK" was also convicted of pollution of agricultural land on an area of ​ ​ 2.4 hectares.

The site was in this state after mining.

But Mr. Strukov seems to see and hear nothing. He is busy multiplying his millions.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

And another Rostekhnadzor audit conducted after the death of a worker at Mr. Strukov's enterprise showed massive violations of the technological process and safety.

But Mr. Strukov never thought or thought about this very security, it costs a lot of money!

Strukov's brutal appetites

How did the Kurasan project begin?

On April 29, 2020, the Board of Directors of UGK JSC approved the implementation of the project for the construction of a mining and processing plant at the South Kurasan and West Kurasan fields.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Serious investments - $250 million.

This is an enterprise at which UGK JSC has been producing industrial development of both fields for 15 years.

In addition to the construction of a gold recovery plant, the project provides for the creation of infrastructure: somehow the construction of a complex of treatment and water intake facilities, an energy substation, as well as the construction of an electric line and a gas pipeline.

With the enterprise reaching its design capacity for processing ore in the amount of 4 million tons per year, the billionaire Strukov's factory will produce up to 4 tons of gold annually.

The South and West Kurasan gold deposits are estimated at 60 million tons of ore, which contain 80 tons of gold and 250 tons of silver.

But now we see, thanks to caring people, how cynically Mr. Strukov deals with the Kurasan River.

Tragedies at sludge sumps

"Armageddon in a Strukovo way" was the name of a journalistic investigation published on February 26, 2019.

And this investigation told about the tragedy in sludge collectors near the city of Kopeysky. It was because of the bungling on the part of the enterprises of the gold miner Strukov near Kopeysky that the earth burned terribly in sludge traps.

The news from Kopeisk was hot. Due to endogenous fires, the land burned not only under the city, and Lake Kurochkino was smoking.

The fire even made its way through the ice!

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

Fires at the site of the sludge pit of the former coal mine near Lake Kurochkino poisoned the air not only in Kopeisk, but also in the village of Starokamyshinsk. And the area of underground fires was then equal to the territory of 5 football fields.

Lake Kurochkino fire. Photo: https://vsegda-pomnim.com/ozera/5691-ozero-kurochkino-74-foto.html

It turns out that the mine was worked out, sludge collectors were filled...

And then - live as you want! The owner of the mine Strukov suddenly disappeared, evaporated!

The inhabitants of the village of Starokamyshinsk, where it was just right to live in gas masks, sent an appeal to the deputy of the State Duma Anatoly Litovchenko. They complained of huge failures due to burnout of the ground. And a very strong smell of burning.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

People asked to intervene in the situation. Mr. Litovchenko sent a deputy request to the city mayor's office: the village of Starokamyshinsk is part of the Kopeysky city district.

But officials said the burning land was federally owned. And the technology of extinguishing endogenous fires has specific features. Space sums are needed to extinguish such fires. There is no money in the city budget. And therefore, the administration of the Kopeysky city district will not extinguish sludge dumps.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

And there is only one way to put out the Strukov failures. To do this, you need to get into the Federal Target Program "Environmental Protection" in the section "Elimination of Past Environmental Damage".

But it's easier to get to Mars than this program...

And Lake Kurochkino is a favorite holiday destination for locals. Children's camps, sanatoriums, recreation centers are still located on the banks. And its gerontological center.

And suddenly all this - because of underground fires - was in danger of going underground...

Then, due to endogenous fires, the concentration of harmful substances in the fires was exceeded tenfold. We are talking about formaldehyde, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. "Wonderful cocktail": you can more than play in a box.

Anatoly Litovchenko. Photo: https://svfirstov.ru/work/social-activity/7881/

By the way, the lake did not exist in Starokamyshinsk before. And there was only a small swamp. But with the start of coal mining, mine waters began to be discharged into this swamp. So the man-made lake Kurochkino was formed.

It does not have natural sources of replenishment of water supply.

According to the memoirs of old-timers, even pulp was drained into Lake Kurochkino, which remained after cleaning energy resources from impurities. Then a dam was erected, outside of which sedimentation tanks and a sludge storage were located.

Strukov himself appeared in these places many years ago.

With its advent, JSC Chelyabinsk Coal Company and OJSC Chelyabinskugol became the owner of mines and factories.

Photo: Rusprofile.ru

The ultimate beneficiary is Mr. Strukov.

But 7 years after his appearance, the billionaire said that he was curtailing coal mining both at the mines in Kopeisk and at the site near Korkino. Even then, Mr. Strukov promised to carry out reclamation, but did not restrain his words. For a long time, people did not even suspect that it was swelling in the bowels of the technogenic lake Kurochkino.

And Strukov at that time acquired licenses for the development of rich deposits in the Kemerovo region.

Representatives of Rostekhnadzor went to the facilities of the Chelyabinsk coal company in Kopeisk, and were aware that the reclamation of sludge storage facilities and the liquidation of mine shafts were not carried out...

Social activists took measurements at the fires. They found an excess of MPC formaldehyde, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide tens of times. And at a distance of 500 m - residential buildings.

But why were Strukov's structures, bypassing the requirements of Rostekhnadzor, unable to reclaim a dangerous object?

Instead of eliminating the sludge storage, Mr. Strukov limited himself to sawing industrial buildings for scrap.

This is how he had reclamation.

But leaving both the village of Starokamyshinsk and the city of Kopeisk in trouble with such terrible problems is a criminal offense. But Strukov did not invest a penny in the reclamation of contaminated objects.

When will they ask him?

Strukov Pit

But the Kurasan River in cyanides, the gelled Kopeisk and Lake Kurochkino are not the only places where the dollar billionaire Konstantin Strukov walked.

Let us recall the tragedy of the mining village of Rosa near the city of Korkino. By the way, Chelyabinsk itself, Kopeisk and Korkino are in the same triangle if you look at the map. This is a kind of local Bermuda triangle in Chelyabinsk. And the houses of miners in the village of Roza slide into the deepest hole in Eurasia - into the Korkinsky open pit.

This is another thriller series, "Strukov and His Mines".

Recall also that back in 2011, together with the governor of the Chelyabinsk region (at that time), Mikhail Yurevich, Mr. Strukov was harshly criticized by Vladimir Putin.

Mikhail Yurevich. Photo: https://eanews.ru/news/skromnoye-ocharovaniye-gubernatorov-mneniye-dmitriya-morgulesa_17-10-2019

It was in 2011 that Putin came to the Chelyabinsk region, visited the village of Roza. And I saw with my own eyes how, due to the expansion of the coal mine, the houses in the village were almost 100 meters from the edge of the hellhole. Due to the expansion of the section, huge cracks formed on many mining houses. Part of the houses then simply collapsed.

And many more buildings were declared emergency. However, billionaire Strukov was in no hurry to finance the resettlement of people from the emergency zone, although during the arrival of Vladimir Putin he was afraid to invest 1 billion rubles in the reclamation of the pit.

12 years have passed since that memorable meeting.

The Corkin Pit has still not been reclaimed.

Residents of the village continue to knock on all doors! And some time ago a high delegation came to the village of Roza - these were members of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation.

The Korkinsky section at that time was also blazing with fires. And in windless weather, a veil of smoke completely hid the huge funnel. Acrid smoke covered all living things around with dense fog.

The delegation from Moscow promised to help!

Pit named after Strukov. Photo: https://chel.mk.ru/incident/2019/10/01/v-korkino-pokonchil-s-soboy-17letniy-paren.html

But nothing has changed!

It turns out that even members of the HRC are powerless in front of the "Strukov pit"?

But finally, only in 2019, the project to eliminate the Korkinsky mine was included in the federal program "Clean Air" of the National Project "Ecology." The agreement on this was signed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, the government of the Chelyabinsk Region and Promreclamation LLC. And now they promise that a "picturesque lake" will appear on the site of the Strukovskaya pit, over time.... Closer to 2050!

But long-suffering people from the village of Roza are not resettled anywhere. The entire relocation ended back in 2019. This was reported by RIA "Novosti".

But how can billionaire Strukov's unsinkability be explained?

The large-scale activities of the billionaire's enterprises, according to experts, completely destroy the ecology of the Chelyabinsk region.

Governor Alexei Teksler cannot but understand this. But he stubbornly keeps quiet.