Klitschko and Akhmetov’s games in transfer of Kyivenergo assets to each other continue. On a new round, these games hooked up the incineration plant “Energia”, which on July 22 stopped the reception of Moscow garbage. Why? Because on July 31 the term of the city’s agreement with Kyivenergo expires, and from August 1 the plant passes to the management of the city authorities as an object of communal property. Before that time, “Energy” has provided itself with garbage, so while there is something to recycle. However, where will the waste go from July 22 to August 1?

Actually, when it comes to garbage, the options for Kiev already … two. Or “Energy” (the plant was launched in 1987), or a polygon in the village. Podgorsy Obukhov district of the Kiev region (opened a year earlier). For 20 years of use, that is, in 2006, the polygon completely exhausted its resource, and then began talking about its immediate closure. However, with something, but with conversations the Ukrainian reality is rich. Another 12 years have passed, and as of 2018, a cart, a landfill, is still there.

However, in 2016, after the tragedy at the Gribovička dump near Lviv, the inhabitants of the village of Podgortsy blocked a training ground with a demand to close it. Then, under public pressure, the city council decided to stop the activities of the test site before October 1, 2018. Until the end of 2017, 9 hectares of landfill had to be covered with an insulating layer. At the same time, the total elimination of the landfill for two years was estimated at almost 300 million UAH.

But all this is on paper. In fact, the operation of the test site has never ceased and will continue. Especially now, when the “Energy” takes a nine-day pause. Further work of the site threatens to break through the dam in its northern part, which is especially overloaded, and, in fact, the repetition of the Griboviches in the Kiev open spaces. And all this is of little concern to anyone, for otherwise the building of a normal (read modern, environmentally safe and so on) waste-processing plant would have already started in the capital or near Kiev.

Because “Energy” is not a panacea at all. Firstly, because during the year the plant burns 250 thousand tons of unsorted solid household waste, and this is only 20% of the total amount of solid waste that Kyiv forms. And, secondly, because the civilized world has long ago moved away from such “energies” and relies not on burning waste, but on their processing. In the end, the plant, regardless of the form of ownership, had to stop work at the beginning of the current year, 2018, the year.

The matter is that on February 1, the term of permission of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources for emissions to the environment expired in Energia. This in turn is due to the fact that starting from 2018, Ukraine will begin to comply with the EU Directive “On limiting emissions of certain air pollutants from large combustion plants” (as of September 23, 2001) signed within the framework of the European integration.

Needless to say, the Energia plant does not in any way correspond to the European standards – it still has electrofilters that catch solid particles. At the same time, a whole bunch of harmful substances freely enters the capital air. To protect themselves from them, it is necessary to install a much more expensive purification system, which with the help of alkaline reagents will “quench” acidic emissions with their subsequent coal filtration.

The introduction of such a purification system was planned for a long time. According to the director of “Energy” Sergei Krikun, back in 2012, a corresponding project worth 137 million UAH was developed. But in the future it turned out that its implementation would cost no less than 500 million UAH. Within the framework of the project, electrostatic precipitators must be dismantled and replaced with chemical filters. This project was tested in August 2013, then the auction was held and the performer was determined. However, later political events in the country postponed the implementation of this idea.

However, in 2014 it seemed that the “own” came to power, which, unlike the previous team of cyclopean thieves, understand the essence of the problem and in no case will not ignore it. But when Vitaliy Klichko became the mayor of Kiev, no one was in a hurry to take up a new exhaust emission cleaning system. The implementation of the project was resumed only in 2016, but at the same time the Kiev budget laid … 50 million UAH for new filters. It was, therefore, about a tenth of the required amount, and maybe even less, since the estimate of 500 million was relevant in 2013 – at another exchange rate.

However, the problem is not only in the Moscow authorities (although the main responsibility is certainly on it). The problem is in the owner, I mean, who (even temporarily) included “Energy” in the assets of “Kyivenergo”. Speech, of course, about the richest (and most artful?) Ukrainian Rinat Akhmetov, who now drops Klitschko all that was squeezed out to them like a lemon, to the last useful drop. The incineration plant had a common “blood system” with “Kyivenergo”, as it contributed to the city’s provision of heating and hot water. At the same time, however, Mr. Akhmetov did not invest a penny in the modernization of the plant – just as he did not invest a penny in maintaining the heating networks in the proper condition.

Now “Energy” – with all its harmful emissions and millions of needs – goes into communal ownership, and therefore, the city government must also puzzle over how to reconcile the continuous operation of the plant and the process of its technical renovation. And also on where to take all this money (do not forget also about the training ground in Pidhirtsi, which already croaks and groans from the garbage). Perhaps, personally for Klitschko, the way out would be to play “Energy” back to Akhmetov, since there is no one to pass this asset to.

Maybe Kievenergo will have mercy and take these ruins back? And another or two generations of Kievites will be wasted – until Akhmetov comes down from the political and business arena, or while some unexpected event (I would not like parallels with the Lvov Griboviches) will not put an end to this ecological mockery. What will happen next is difficult to say, although I would like, of course, to jump off that powder keg on which the entire city sits. However, somebody’s hands are already bringing the wick to the barrel …

Mikhail Pozhivanov (Chairman of the Foundation for Municipal Reforms “Magdeburg Law”)
A source