Post by copperkid3 on Sept 10, 2016 22:19:55 GMT
Photos published on Russian social media appear to the show the Daldykan River near the city of Norilsk flowing vivid burgundy.
Russian authorities have yet to establish a reason for the river’s unusual appearance, but local people quickly linked it to a giant
metals plant upstream. Russia's Environment Ministry said it was investigating a plant leak as the likely cause.
Norilsk is known as one of the most polluted cities on earth, built around factories mostly belonging to the vast metals company Norilsk Nickel.
Some Norilsk residents wrote in a local social media group that they believed the river’s biblical shade is linked to runoff from a nearby smelting plant.
abcnews.go.com/International/russian-river-mysteriously-turns-blood-red/story?id=41914260
The posts prompted Russia's Environment Ministry to respond, issuing a statement announcing that it is investigating
and that preliminary information suggests the cause was a leak from waste pipes belonging to Norilsk Nickel. A company
subsidiary denied the pollution was caused by an accident involving the Hope factory, according to the statement.
The ministry said it is still working to locate the pollution's source.
Reached by ABC News, the factory declined to comment.
Grigory Dukarev of the Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the Taimir Peninsula, which represents native communities in the area,
told ABC News that he was preparing to submit a formal complaint to regional authorities asking them to investigate and was traveling to the river to record the pollution.
He said he was previously told that the runoff from the factories was not harmful and would cause minimal ecological damage. But he said he was skeptical.
"I'm going to ask the representative from the company to drink this water," Dukarev said. "Will they drink this water? I doubt that."
That last sentence reminds me of that YouTube video of the Monsanto lobbyist who claimed
that RoundUp was safe to drink but then refused; asking the interviewer a rhetorical question:
"I'm not stupid.... I'm NOT an idiot?!!!" www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovKw6YjqSfM
