Murmansk, a region just shy of the Arctic Circle, has its share of both global and local ecological challenges. A major centre of heavy industry, Murmansk has a high level of environmental contamination and, like many regions, it faces a dilemma: its industrial plants are both the basis of the local economy and the chief polluters of its air, water and soil.
The most prominent of these polluters is the Pechenganikel mining and smelting complex, part of the Kola Mining and Metallurgical Company, a division of Norilsk Nickel, which supplies about 20 per cent of the world’s nickel. There are regular disputes with neighbouring Scandinavian countries over toxic substances drifting across their borders, and Bellona-Murmansk, a local environmental organisation, claims that Pechenganikel contravenes regulations on maximum permitted emissions.
The company’s management denies this, and their statements are confirmed by checks carried out by various state bodies. There is, however, some doubt as to the objectivity of such checks given that the inspectors confer with management on their timing. Russia’s Meteorological Centre has also recorded a high concentration of sulphur dioxide in the air around the complex, evidence that maximum permitted emission rules are indeed being contravened.
