Spontaneous protest meeting held in Lida

People protested against construction of a plant with unhealthy work.

More than two thousand signatures have been already collected under a demand to the authorities to revoke the decision to build a Metal structures Hot Dip Galvanizing plant in the city of Lida. The local dwellers expressed their protest also at a meeting held on June 1.

The authorities plan to build the plant at a distance of 350 metres from the nearest village and 800 metres from a residential neighbourhood of Lida.

There is already "Optik" plant in this district, and sewage treatment works near the villages. Their waste pipes go immediately to the kitchen gardens of the village.

The new construction is to spoil the ecological situation, so people have gathered for a rally against the plant construction.

"This plant won't bring us anything except ilnesses. What is galvanizing, or zinc coating? Metal would be put into melt zink, and harmful waste will come to us," dwellers say.

"About 200 tons of hydrochloric acid of high concentration a year would be processed here. In case of some emergency we would be simply drowned by this acid," Lida dwellers state.

Residents say they have written many complaints already.

"They are decieving us, saying it is not harmful. They are not worried that our children woulkd die earlier," people are indignant.

"But we have a right for decent life, which includes normal ecological conditions. And we demand to have such a right," stated one of the protesing women.