Water samples taken by Greenpeace in Russia’s Arctic at the site of a wastewater dump by mining giant Norilsk Nickel contained 50 times the permitted level of toxic substances, the environmental campaign group has said.
The miner admitted last month its Talnakh metals processing plant had used pumps to dump industrial water near the city of Norilsk on June 28 and said it had fired several of the plant’s managers after learning of the incident.
Greenpeace, which discovered the dump with newspaper Novaya Gazeta when it was investigating the damage caused by a huge diesel fuel spill by a Norilsk Nickel subsidiary in late May, has said the wastewater flowed into a local river.