Struggle For Clean Air In Navapolatsk Continues

Activists demand to stop burning petroleum coke.

The petition for stopping the construction of a boiler for burning petroleum coke at the Navapolatsk CHPP has been submitted to the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the website of the Human Rights Centre Viasna reports.

"We demand to stop the process of designing and building a boiler for burning petroleum coke at the Navapolatsk CHPP," - the citizens call in the petition, which was posted on the Convenient City online platform. The authors of the appeal believe that the construction of the boiler "will significantly increase emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere."

"Navapolatsk is already the leader in terms of emissions of harmful substances by industrial enterprises, so it is unacceptable to build a new industrial facility, which exacerbates the situation with emissions," - Dzmitry Salauyou, a human rights activist and activist of the For Clean Air in Navapolatsk campaign, who has handed over the petition to the authorities, believes.

The public discussion of the project on the construction of the boiler for burning petroleum coke at the Navapolatsk CHPP and its impact on the environment was held in April - May 2019. Then the Belarusian environmentalists sounded the alarm and warned that it "would kill the region completely."

In April, a collective appeal against the construction of the boiler was already prepared in Navapolatsk. The petition "To prevent an ecological catastrophe in the town of Navapolatsk" collected almost 1800 signatures. As a result, Vitsebskenerha had to suspend public discussions "due to a large number of comments on the report." The Ministry of Energy replied that the document (the EIA report) would be revised and would pass through a second public discussion, and would also have to receive a positive conclusion from the state expert group.