Environmental inspectors conducted an unscheduled inspection of the Zhytomyr-based municipal enterprise Motor Transport Enterprise 0628, which operates the city's landfill, and found leachate contamination of land and a tributary of the Kroshenka River.
To equip the leachate collection pond, the utility used 0.2 hectares of forestry land and 0.06 hectares of Zhytomyr land, the State Ecological Inspectorate of the Polissia District reports on Facebook.
It is noted that the inspection was conducted on March 6-19 due to a citizen's appeal in the EcoThreat app.
"The construction of the leachate collection pond actually resulted in the withdrawal of forest land from forestry production. No decisions on the transfer of the said land plot for use by the said business entity have been submitted," said Yevhen Medvedovsky, head of the Polissya District State Environmental Inspectorate, explaining that this indicates unauthorized occupation of land.
He added that the soil cover was removed during the construction of the sedimentation pond, but the utility did not submit a working land management project.
"As a result of leachate seepage from the landfill's sedimentation ponds, adjacent land plots located outside the landfill were contaminated," Medvedovsky emphasized.
It is noted that environmental inspectors took four soil samples for laboratory analysis, which showed an excess of the MPC:
- iron – 2.3 times, 3 times, 1.4 times;
- copper – 1.6 times, 2.3 times, 1.2 times;
- exchangeable ammonium – 10.5 times, 11 times, 9.2 times, 1.3 times;
- chlorides – by 1.5 times, 5.5 times, 4.5 times.
The press service emphasized that environmental inspectors also analyzed the waters of an unnamed stream and the Kroshenka River, into which it flows. They found that the maximum permissible concentration in the stream was exceeded:
- iron – by 5.7 times;
- chemical oxygen demand (COD) – by 6 times;
- biological oxygen demand (BOD5) – by 16 times.
There is also a deterioration in water quality in the Kroshenka River – in the section below the confluence of the unnamed stream compared to the section above.
It is noted that environmental inspectors are preparing materials for the State Geocadastre to determine the monetary value of land plots that have been contaminated. And also on the loss of forestry production due to the withdrawal of land from the forest fund. They also require utilities to provide information on the volume of leachate discharged into the river.
Based on this data, the State Environmental Inspectorate will calculate the amount of damage to the environment.
As EcoPolitic previously reported, the executive committee of the Zhytomyr City Council decided to bring the water utility to financial responsibility for the pollution of the Teteriv River with untreated wastewater in the area of the village of Sloboda-Selets.
