PAM is preparing to extend the license until 2019.

The Chelyabinsk Coal Company of Konstantin Strukov, contrary to the recommendations of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, is preparing to extend the license for coal mining in the Korkinsky open-pit mine. Federal officials were ready to write off 14 million tons of coal remaining in the depths of the deposit from the balance sheet in favor of saving the residents of the village of Roza, nearby Korkino and Chelyabinsk from the ore that is permanently burning in the open pit. The PMC states that by 2019, scientists will just develop a reclamation project, although according to the refined forecasts of specialists, the development of methods and documentation will take a maximum of 2 years. Meanwhile, the director of the coal company, Valery Kalyanov, acknowledged fears that the mine could remain ownerless. Then the fight against environmental problems that come from the quarry will fall on the shoulders of the Chelyabinsk region with a multimillion-dollar burden, as has already happened in the neighboring region. Observers point out that Mr. Strukov has once managed to avoid investing more than a billion in the resettlement of the residents of the village of Roza. The same can happen with the reclamation of an industrial facility.

Representatives of the Chelyabinsk Coal Company (ChUK, is engaged in mining at the Korkinsky coal mine), owned by the deputy of the Legislative Assembly Konstantin Strukov, indirectly admitted that before the arrival of RMK in the project they were ready to abandon a spent quarry without supervision. In an interview with local media, the general director of the ChUK Valeriy Kalyanov said: “The main thing that we managed to convey, and the governor supported me, is that we should not allow people to be abandoned and left without the supervision of the quarries.” Accordingly, before the inclusion in the project of the Russian Copper Company, which is ready to help with reclamation by storing dry sands in the Korkinsky open-pit mine, PSC probably did not plan to conserve a private asset, which is problematic for the region.

Recall that the specialists of the Ural State mining university when auditing project documentation on the creation of the "Tominsky Mining and Processing Plant" in the Sosnovsky District of the Chelyabinsk Region, it was recommended to abandon the idea of ​​constructing a tailing dump in favor of building a slurry pipeline through which pasty waste will flow to the side of the Korkinsky open-pit mine. After additional drying with tails, it is recommended to fill up a burning coal pit all year round.

Over the past 3 months, several meetings have already taken place with the participation of RMK, ChUK, representatives of the administration of the Chelyabinsk region and the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, at which the prospects for the implementation of the project for the reclamation of the Korkinsky open-pit mine were discussed. One of the meeting participants told Pravda of the Ural Federal District that representatives of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation were ready to write off the coal reserves remaining on the balance sheet in the amount of 14 million tons in order for the operator of the field to quickly deal with the elimination of one of the most problematic industrial points of the Chelyabinsk region in the plan of environmental pollution.

Despite these recommendations from the federals, the Chelyabinsk Coal Company decided to postpone the work on reclamation of the open pit for several more years. Until 2019, Konstantin Strukov will try to "squeeze" the last resources from the coal deposit that can bring profit. At a meeting with the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Boris Dubrovsky, the representatives of the ChUK said that they were dealing with the issue of extending the license for coal mining until 2019. Although, according to preliminary estimates, scientists will develop a reclamation project in 2 years.

In the opinion of a mining expert, "Strukov expects this time to" leave "at the expense of others, as was the case in 2012." Recall that in 2012, after a visit to the village of Roza (located on board the Korkinsky open pit), Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded to urgently relocate the residents of the village from the danger zone. Then the resettlement started, however, only its first part was implemented, for which 2 billion rubles were allocated from the federal and regional budgets. The coal company itself has promised to invest another billion to conduct further work but this has not been done to this day.

The village of Rosa is now gradually moving towards the edge of the quarry, and cracks appear on the houses. Kindergartens and a school in the village have already been recognized by the prosecutor's office as unsuitable for teaching children. Residents, one after another, send letters of appeal to all instances, but so far businessman Strukov from Forbes list it is possible to "extinguish" these attempts of the population to defend their right to a "safe and dignified life." Since the beginning of August, brochures began to appear in the mailboxes of residents of Korkino and Rosa, in which activists advocating for the reclamation of the mine and resettlement of residents are called swindlers trying to leave locality without educational institutions, although they were closed at the insistence of the security forces.

According to outside observers, Mr. Strukov does not benefit from the noise around the Korkinsky open-pit mine, although it cannot be ruled out that the businessman-deputy was counting on simply leaving him after working out his career. Industry experts remind that there are many examples in the Urals when the regional authorities were forced to finance the maintenance of abandoned industrial facilities that pose a threat to the life of the population.

For example, from the budget Sverdlovsk region annually more than a hundred million rubles are spent on neutralizing mines abandoned in the nineties. Only for the operation of the branch of the enterprise "UralMonocyte" in the village of Levikha, 60 million rubles are annually allocated. For government money, the pumping and disposal of mine waters, which contain a large amount of acids and heavy metals, are carried out. The ingress of such water into natural reservoirs threatens the region with an ecological catastrophe.

OJSC Chelyabinsk Coal Company is ready to stop mining coal at the Korkinsky coal mine. At the expense of own funds ChUK is developing a project to liquidate the open-pit mine. The work is nearing completion.

One of the sections of the project is the reclamation of the mine. It was proposed to involve the Russian Copper Company CJSC in its implementation, that is, fill the deepest hole in Eurasia with material made on the basis of crushed tailings (waste rock) of the enrichment plant of the future Tominsky GOK. This proposal was supported by the RF Ministry of Energy. RMK became a shareholder of PAMC (this process has not been legally completed yet). A working group was created, a roadmap was developed.

The Uralpress correspondent spoke with Vice Governor Oleg Klimov about the future of the Korkinsky open-cast mine and the Tominsky GOK, about the possible consequences of combining their reclamation efforts and what the deepest hole in Eurasia will be like in a couple of decades.

Oleg Borisovich, does the license for coal mining from the Chelyabinsk Coal Company expire on January 1, 2018?

Yes. And according to the law, by the end of the license, the enterprise must prepare a project for the reclamation of the quarry. The document must undergo an examination by January 1, 2018.

- But the coal reserves in the Korkinsky open-pit mine have not dried up yet?

There are still coal reserves in the section. But this coal is of poor quality. Mining one million tons of coal per year, the mine is at zero profitability. If the governor didn’t convince power engineers with his administrative resources, no one would buy this coal. In fact, Konstantin Strukov (the owner of the PSC) together with Boris Dubrovsky (the governor) decide social problem... This also needs to be understood.

The option of extending the license for 5-7 years was considered. The open-pit mine would be mining on the sly, power engineers would buy coal under pressure from the region. And we would definitely be left with endogenous fires, a huge pit and a complete lack of understanding where to get 20 billion rubles from to fill it. Then the governor would leave and leave this headache next chapter of the region. But Dubrovsky decided not to shift the solution of this problem to others. PMC financed the development of the open pit liquidation project. This is a serious work, which involves studying the stability of the sides, water inflow, extinguishing fires and much more.

- Oleg Borisovich, is the coal mine leased by the ChUK?

Yes, all coal reserves are owned by the state.

- And when ChUK runs out of license, it may well close the door and leave?

Yes. The PAM is in the second stage of bankruptcy. The license runs out, he can close the doors and leave if he declares himself bankrupt.

- Has the PAM been in the stage of bankruptcy for several years already?

They insured themselves just in case. We passed the first, second stage. One step left.

- And how can a bankrupt PAMC be able to reduce the staff (about a thousand people) after liquidation from January 1?

-… and to say, we have no obligations to anyone.

- And then the huge pit will be whose headache?

According to the law, the ownerless object must be taken on the balance sheet by the local municipality.

- Not a federation, not a region, but the Korkinsky municipal district?

And then the district administration will have to be responsible for safety, for the elimination of endogenous fires, for crumbling sides ...

For all. And this practice already exists in Russia. For example, in the Rostov region, abandoned open-pit mines are “hanged” on municipalities.

- But you understand that the poor, to put it mildly, Korkinsky district will not bear such a burden?

Everyone understands that you cannot just stop work in the context. With an operating open-pit mine, surveying observations, water pumping, registration of newly emerging fires and the fight against them, and quarry protection are carried out. If all this is abandoned, then the object will be dangerous. The authorities and owners understand that the quarry cannot be abandoned for a single day. And this will not happen. The owner of the PMC, Konstantin Strukov, is integrated into the system of the Chelyabinsk region (he also has enterprises here and is a member of the Legislative Assembly). He promised the governor that the quarry would not be abandoned, and there is no doubt that it will be so.

And how will he perform it? If coal mining is stopped at the open pit, then where can we get the money to keep the pit in a relatively safe state?

The object will not be abandoned for a single day. A working group has been created, headed by the governor. RMK became a shareholder of the Chelyabinsk Coal Company, and an enterprise with the old name ChUK or “ChUK and GEK” (we will call it that for now) will continue to operate. It will conduct surveying observations of the condition of the boards, security, pumping water and so on. That is all technological processes, except for coal mining, will continue.

Why would the Russian Copper Company take on the problems of the PSC? The owner of any company, first of all, calculates the benefits, and then takes a step.

RMK's project for the extraction and processing of porphyry copper ores from the Tominskoye deposit, after an environmental audit, caused a number of complaints. Then RMK was asked to abandon hydrometallurgy and find another place to store dewatered tailings of the plant's enrichment.

In the original version, the tailing dump was supposed to occupy about 880 hectares with a dam of 93 meters. This is such a lunar landscape, semi-liquid brown mud.

In addition, residents and environmentalists were unhappy with the proximity to the only drinking source - the Shershnevsky reservoir.

You have to understand that this would not be a liquid lake. These are sands of a certain fraction.

- That is, they would not interact with underground sources?

No. These are fantasies and speculations. Moreover, when examining the site, it is clear that the tailing dump would be removed from the Shershnyi further than all other objects of the GOK, and there is a natural barrier - an underground watershed, where Mother Nature has built rocks below so that they would not let water in the direction of the Shershnevsky reservoir.

But the huge territory occupied by the tailing dump would have to be paid for. The huge dam needs to be watched. By abandoning all this and hydrometallurgical production, RMK gained savings. In addition, if you store waste in a section, then instead of a lunar landscape, a three times smaller cooling pond with blue water will appear.

- That is, they considered that they would not incur losses, and agreed?

Yes. But this proposal needs to be worked out thoroughly and they ordered research work on the entire range of issues related to the change in the project.

That is, according to the new project, the waste from the GOK will be pumped from one pit to another through a pipeline almost ten kilometers long?

Not from pit to pit. A processing plant will be located on the sides of the Tominsky GOK. The rock to be extracted from the deposit has a low copper content. After enrichment, the ore will be transported to Karabash, and the sands - about 99% of the mined - were to be sent to the tailing dump. Now finely crushed rock will be brought to a certain consistency, driven into a pipe and distilled under pressure to the side of the cut. There will be another station there. There will be a slurry pipeline along the sides of the cut, which will have spouts. First of all, this will be in the places of endogenous fires existing today (so that we do not wait for the entire cut to be filled, but immediately begin to fight the fires). And it should slide to the very bottom. Here is such a project at work today.

- Has the chemical analysis of the sands left after beneficiation been investigated? To what class of danger did they belong?

These are sands of the fourth hazard class. They pose no real threats. There are roughness, they relate to the fact that any mining waste is not allowed to be stored. But at the federal level, instructions have already been given to eliminate existing gaps in legislation.

The new landfill practice was found to be good. And if we work it out well here, then it will be applied in Kuzbass and in other regions where there are such careers.

- So we are pioneers?

We are pilots. Nowhere else has there been such an investor who would agree to carry out such work without attracting budget funds.

It is supposed to cover the quarry with sands to 150-200 meters, and endogenous fires are going on at around 260-280 meters. How to solve the problem with fires?

The project envisages that simultaneously with the filling of the quarry, the sides will be reduced. With cooldown, all points of possible coal exit will be closed.

To date, a seismic station (nine posts) has been installed in the section, which monitors the effect of seismic activity on the sides of the open pit. Will this work continue?

The seismic station was supplied by GURSH (federal state state-financed organization on the issues of reorganization and liquidation of unprofitable mines and open-pit mines "GURSH"). The working group entrusted “PAMC and GEKU” to study the issue of its further use.

This seismic station is not built in common network seismic stations in Russia. It is local. We offered to transfer it to the Russian Academy of Sciences (there is a branch in Yekaterinburg). But the question arises as to who will keep it. So far, no decision has been made on this issue.

You say that the sides are calm, and the general director of the ChUK, Valery Kalyanov, said that they had recently prevented a huge landslide.

Today, there are serious landslides inside the section and new ones appear. A sliding landslide exposes old mine workings and new sources of endogenous fires appear. If possible, it is better to avoid them.

However, according to observations of both scientists and the coal company itself, there is no risk of side flaking, as in the Kopeysky open-pit mine, today in the Korkinsky open-pit mine.

The key word is today. There were no such risks when the Kopeysky open-pit mine was closed. And now the sides are collapsing.

There is a very big difference here. The Kopeisk section has been abandoned: the water level rises there, no one is busy with the sides, pumping water. Now there are risks for the Kopeysk machine plant located on the sides of the quarry. We offered the owners of the enterprise to pay for design and survey work (700 thousand rubles) in order to understand the near future. The non-Russian shareholder refused. We ordered him to ensure the safety of the workers: to put up cameras, to take the workers out of the most dangerous workshops. When the split goes further, it will find the necessary funds for research. There are no risks for housing.

At the Korkinsky open-pit mine, the sides are being re-sloped, water is being pumped out. And this work will not be stopped.

Oleg Borisovich, another important issue is personnel. If coal mining ceases from January 2018, will PLC workers be laid off?

No. Within the framework of working group a subgroup was created, headed by Vladislav Smirnov, head of the main department for labor and employment. He received data on all employees (about one thousand people). Everyone who can be retrained to work at RCC will be retrained at their expense and go to work for them. Some people will retire, others (with lower qualifications) will make decisions on employment. Not a single person will be abandoned.

Oleg Borisovich, we are discussing the project of backfilling the open pit with sands of the Tominsky GOK, but the final decision on the construction of the GOK has not been made yet?

In my understanding, Tominsky GOK will be. Work is underway to finalize the project, taking into account the proposed changes. RCC is removed from the project for hydrometallurgical production, where acid is used. They dump the tailings dump and make an additional section on these things.

- And these amendments must undergo an environmental impact assessment?

Yes. I have no big doubts that all the edits will be made quickly and efficiently. And as soon as all the changes are made and passed the examination, there will be no obstacles to work.

- That is, you already have an understanding when the open pit will be covered with the sands of the Tominsky GOK?

There is a roadmap in which all the deadlines are written. Tominsky GOK, as a fully functioning facility, will appear in 5-7 years. By this time, it will be at full capacity. The first pulp, according to my estimates, will appear in 2019.

- And how many years will the mine be covered with the sands of the GOK?

The section will be backfilled during the entire development period of the Tominsky GOK. It's 20 years old. They will immediately begin to fight fires, and immediately carry out rejuvenation. There will be no endogenous fires at the mine by 2020. But the lake will appear not earlier than in 20 years.

Korkino is not an ordinary city. There are many mines around, already closed and flooded. And so far no one knows what new paths the water will lay for itself underground. So at the former Prigorodnaya mine, a large pit was formed in the place where the people of Korkin used to ski. Has anyone calculated the consequences of the flooding of the mine?

The task is to make the lake, which will appear at the site of the cut, suitable for recreation, that is, for recreation and for fish farming.

- So there will be a resort?

Yes. There is also a Turquoise quarry, where trout are bred.

Reference:

Lake Turquoise is located in the Etkul region (not far from the Korkinsky open-cut mine). It got its name from the turquoise color of the water. It is the deepest open-pit reservoir in the Southern Urals, created on the site of a coal open pit. The greatest depth of the quarry is 96 meters, the average depth of the lake is 47.5 meters. The width is 600 meters. Today the lake is in private hands, a fish nursery is organized in it.

The lake that will appear on the site of the Korkinsky section will be no worse than the Turquoise one. It will not be a technical reservoir, but a recreation area.

- I can't believe it yet ...

The reclamation project is a major engineering project that will pass the state ecological expertise. This is a very strict examination, where all questions will be investigated. After its development, we will be ready to answer all questions of citizens. And we are not interested in doing something bad for the region. We are the same inhabitants, we live here, work, rest, go for mushrooms and berries, go fishing.

- And you are not going to go anywhere?

Not going to. My children live here, and my mother-in-law.

- And after 2020, no one will be able to blame the mine for polluting the air in Chelyabinsk?

Will not work.

So far, few people believe that dense forests will appear on the site of the cut dumps, that instead of a deep pit there will be a turquoise lake, that the air around the quarry will be clean, and the territory of the Korkinsky district will become a resort place. Life will show ... And we, I hope, will see it.

Since November 20, the Korkinsky open-pit mine has stopped mining and removal of rock mass. That is, in fact, the enterprise does not work. A year ago, there were almost 500 employees here, most of whom are residents of Korkino and the nearby village of Rosa.

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW AT THE CUT?

General Director of the Chelyabinsk Coal Company (Korkinsky mine was on the balance sheet of the enterprise) Valery Kalyanov confirmed in an interview with the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda - Chelyabinsk: the work was stopped, all special equipment was raised up.

Now in emergency warehouses of the Chelyabinsk Coal Company there are about 30 thousand tons of coal. These are reserves for the needs of our power engineers, with whom we worked under supply contracts. And in the very near future this coal needs to be shipped and taken out, - says Valery Kalyanov.

WHO WILL EXTINGUISH NATURAL FIRES?

But what is happening does not mean at all that now marauders and diggers will climb into the mines. A new subsoil user will now be engaged in the protection of the perimeter of the mine (almost 25 km) - the recently created structure of LLC Promrekultivatsiya. It was by order of the management of this company that the cut stopped all work on November 20.

Natural fires constantly occur at the cut, which are often cause of smog in Chelyabinsk and other cities... What now? Will it start to smoke and no one will put it out? What then will become of our air?

- "Industrial reclamation" is also responsible for the elimination of possible fires. So the question is under control. V Soviet years the cut smoked much more seriously. There were more fires. Plus, houses were mostly heated with wood, boiler houses were fired with coal. The smoke was very high. It's just that no one paid much attention to it. Now we have a closer look at the environment. It even comes to the point that let's close all enterprises, and then everything will be fine. We took dozens of measurements. Smoke from the cut, if felt, then within a radius of 10-12 kilometers, no more. This is especially noticeable in winter, - explained Kalyanov.

HOW STOPPING THE CUT WILL AFFECT LIVING IN CORKINO

Over the past few months, almost 200 employees have been laid off from the Korkinsky open-pit mine after a decrease in production volumes. Now, after the final closure of the enterprise, about 300 more people will be laid off. So far, nobody has been hired by the Promrekultivatsiya staff. Of course, such a staff reduction is a serious blow to Korkino's budget. After all former employees PSCs will simply be left without income, - said Valery Kalyanov.

REFERENCE "KP"

Development of the Korkinsky coal mine began in 1931. In recent years, coal has been mined here open way... The Korkinsky section is considered to be the deepest "pit" in Eurasia - the depth of excavation is more than 500 meters. The balance reserves of coal at the open pit now amount to 14-15 million tons.

In February 2012, Vladimir Putin visited the mine. It was decided to stage-by-stage closure of the incision and the resettlement of part of the residents of the village of Roza and Korkino.

https: //www.site/2018-02-12/chto_proishodit_na_korkinskom_razreze_posle_ostanovki_dobychi_uglya_i_kto_tushit_pozhary

Report from the "hot spot" of the Southern Urals

What happens at the Korkinsky open-pit mine after stopping coal mining and who extinguishes the fires

Coal in the Korkinsky open-pit mine has been mined since the 30s of the last century. Since then, it has turned into the deepest pit in Eurasia. Its depth reached 493 meters by the time production was completed in November 2017. This dangerous production facility was listed for the Chelyabinsk Coal Company. However, its owners threw this smoking pit, poisoning the air for tens of kilometers around, as soon as the cut stopped bringing money. There is a solution to the abandonment of the quarry - filling it with backfill material, which will be produced at the processing plant of the Tominsky GOK. But while the project is being coordinated, firefighting has to be carried out by all available means - with the involvement of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. And the financing of these works was undertaken by the Promrekultivatsiya company.

The last ton of coal was raised in Korkino last autumn. Immediately after that, the management of the subsoil user - the Chelyabinsk Coal Company (affiliated with the deputy of the ZSO Konstantin Strukov) - gave the command to withdraw the quarry equipment and miners. The order was executed promptly. And overnight, on the same command, the open pit lost the special equipment and personnel involved in extinguishing endogenous (uncontrolled) fires inside the open pit. These fires, with varying intensity, have continued within the section for decades. These are the natural features of the local brown coal. The smoke from combustion, especially during unfavorable weather conditions, spreads throughout the Korkinsky district and even, which is officially recognized by the authorities, reaches Chelyabinsk, which is already suffocating from emissions from local industrial enterprises, vehicles, city dumps and other sources.

Fire fighting

In the area of ​​increased attention now, when the Chelyabinsk Coal Company and its owner abandoned the facility, there is a serious danger of a worsening of the situation, but work to combat fires has begun and is being implemented in full.

“The situation did not remain uncontrollable for a single day,” said Alexander Aksenenko, commander of the Kopeysk paramilitary mine rescue detachment of the Russian Emergencies Ministry. - At the initiative of the Promrekultivatsiya company, literally right away, on November 24, we entered into a service contract and continued monitoring the situation as usual, in constant readiness to act in case of an emergency.

On February 6 this year, people appeared in the section again. At the coal dump of the former processing plant, a few dozen meters from the side of the mine, the rescuers began a large-scale operation to eliminate one of the so-called heating zones. Due to the cessation of production, their number has increased in recent months. The total area reaches 260 thousand square meters. The peculiarity of the local coals is that they ignite spontaneously in direct contact with oxygen. And the heating process is a harbinger of an imminent big fire in the future.

One of these zones was found at the dump of an enrichment plant. If you miss the moment, do not localize the potential danger in time, it will not seem a little to anyone. These are not the usual perennial fires at the bottom of the section, at a depth of almost half a kilometer. Here, up to the surface of 20-30 meters and the smoke goes straight to the nearby infamous village of Roza and the regional center Korkino itself.

To prevent emergency Rescuers use efficient and proven technology to irrigate the problem area. The task is to prevent further heating and, if possible, completely cool the rock.

A large-diameter canvas hose will be stretched from a large motor pump that supplies water to the work site. A little further, there are several of them. Each sleeve is terminated in metal pipes with a tapered end. All of them are dotted with numerous small holes. Through them, water is supplied to the cooled surface.

- In our situation, we do not hammer such perforated fire lances with a pointed tip into rock formation, as is usually done, - explained the assistant commander of the mine rescue detachment Oleg Lyubimov. - At the Korkinsky open-cut mine, we found it more efficient to lay these peaks directly over the surface and thus irrigate and cool the self-heating zone. Today we use eight such peaks. This is enough to gradually eliminate the heating zone, from edge to center.

Working with water on outdoors at the time of freezing temperatures in February - this is the lot of extreme lovers in the common view. However, the work of mine rescuers is by nature extreme. But a man is a man, and more than six hours in the open air, even for seasoned specialists, it is impossible to withstand in protective clothing. It is for six hours that each shift works. Four shifts without a break, around the clock, today they are doing everything to rule out an emergency.

And the water falling on the irrigated surface, surprisingly does not freeze, but gradually seeps into the depths. As if this is not happening in winter, but in summer.

This is understandable, rescuers said. The heating zone is not just a figure of speech. The irrigated rock is warm, even hot. Therefore, the water goes inside, gradually cooling the center of potential fire. And when frost starts to form - this is a reason for the joy of mine rescuers. This means that the site is already cooled, so everything is being done correctly.

Waiting for liquidation

The work that the Kopeysk mine rescuers are currently doing in the Korkinsky open-cut mine is not only a prevention of the transformation of heating zones (there are 17 of them in total in the open-cut mine today - Author's note) into full-fledged fires. Not only a guarantee that as a result of new fires the state of atmospheric air in the district will not deteriorate. This is still work for the future.

Most of the heating zones are located directly on the intra-quarry communications, on the roads that lead into the depth of the section, to a mark of almost minus 500 meters. These roads will soon be needed to liquidate the open-pit mine with backfill material produced from the tailings of the Tominsky GOK concentrating plant.

Nail Fattakhov / website

Until that time, "Promrekultivatsiya", despite the fact that the responsible operator of the facility has withdrawn from the fulfillment of obligations, will continue to fight fires with the involvement of professionals. After cooling, the self-heating zones will be insulated with specially prepared inert clay masses. They will be applied up to one meter thick. This will completely eliminate the contact of problem areas of the mine with air. And there will be no air, nothing will support the heating and combustion process.

- We will move on to this stage when the surface is prepared to ensure the safety of work, and the necessary documentation has been developed and approved, without which it is impossible to start not only independent elimination of foci, but also, in principle, to carry out any work in the context, - said Nikolay Dzhemilev, general manager LLC "Promrekultivatsiya". - The problem is that the open pit as a hazardous production facility is still owned by the Chelyabinsk Coal Company. That is, the PMC continues to be legally responsible for its operation and for the fight against fires.

However, the management of the PAMC does nothing, referring to the fact that the company is in the process of liquidation and has neither the technical nor the financial capabilities to deal with this problem. Promrekultivatsiya now finances all work for the coal company.

How Korkino dies and how one of the main environmental problems of the Southern Urals can be solved

In parallel, today the company is engaged in personnel selection, settlement land relations, holding public discussions of the project for the liquidation of the Korkinsky coal mine. With a preliminary assessment of the impact of the project on environment within the next month can be found in the office of "Promrekultivatsiya" in Korkino. There are plenty of things to do. So far, there are 16 people on the staff of Promrekultivatsiya, 12 of them are former employees of the ChUK, people who are well aware of the specifics of working in a career.

- The total staff of "Promrekultivatsiya" will be 120 people. And among them there will also be many former employees coal company. Good specialists we need, - concluded Nikolay Dzhemilev.