OREANDA-NEWS. October 26, 2010. In the course of implementation of the environment protection policies of the Mineral and Chemical Company EuroChem, the Group's Kovdorsky GOK plant has commenced the implementation of a project to build the first phase of an industrial waste dump. Experts of the holding company have estimated the total cost of the project at RUR 22.5 m.

The project implementation is meant to reduce anthropogenic stress on the environment from the operating activities of the complex and improve the ecological situation on the territory of the plant and Kovdorsky District.

The project provides for the creation of watertight diaphragms in the bottom of the dump, a settling pond together with an inner drainage system, a sewer system with a pump station to help utilize sewage for technological purposes, building of unpaved motor roads, protection earth walls around the perimeter of the dump and timely reclamation of used land by the planting of forests there. Overall, three phases of the waste dump are to be built, each one designed for a fifteen-year lifespan.

Organization of an underground water monitoring network, sampling water from the drainage system and regular field studies of the water level and its chemical composition, will allow maintaining constant and reliable control over the state of the environment.

Presently the only place for legal waste disposal is the city dump for solid domestic waste. Kovdorsky GOK will be utilizing this ground until is own waste dump is created. Along with the obvious environmental protection impact, this project will help reduce the plant’s payments for industrial waste disposal, because today a ratio of 1.0 is applied to the calculation of payments that must be made to environmental authorities. In addition to that, payments are made for the placement and disposal of waste into the city dump. With the placement into operation of its won waste dump, the payments of the Kovdorsky GOK plant will be calculated using the ratio of 0.3. The economic effects from the new dump will exceed RUR 1 m a year.