Vladimir Shlyomin

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ccording to Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Nizhny Tagil has been removed from the list of the first ten cities, which are most inadequate ecologically. At the same time the Nizhny Tagil Iron & Steel Works (NTMK), which is based there, has been placed last among the largest enterprises of the Russian steel industry that discharge over 100,000 tons of air pollutants a year.
nly recently the volume of air pollutants in this Ural city with half a million population amounted to 1.5 tons per its each citizen a year. Referring to this figure Anna Savina, the head of the ecology department at the city administration, points out that such a severe atmospheric pollution resulted from the concentration of "industrial load on the comparatively small territory" and "the low technical level of metals production".
The program of improving the environment approved at NTMK made it possible to radically reduce the damage. Due to the introduction of new technologies the enterprise cut down discharges by 6,000 tons in 2002 and by 2,000 tons more in 2003. There are several distinct directions in the ecological policy of NTMK:
- developing an economic strategy that would optimally meet ecological, economic and social interests of both the enterprise and the city;
- developing management of the environment protection activity as one of the components of its competitive edge;
- reducing all kinds of hazardous effects of the production process;
- reducing step by step the specific consumption of natural and energy resources;
- utilizing the previously accumulated as well as the fresh waste.
The new program to reconstruct and develop the Nizhny Tagil Iron & Steel Works for the period till 2010 is also focused on reducing volumes of harmful discharges and disposals. The remaining open-hearth furnaces will be put out of operation in the foreseeable future (it is not ruled out that this may take place during the current year, if a relevant decision is made) with steel making to be offset at the converter shop.
"We are planning to invest about $130 million in the converter shop", says Sergei Nosov, the NTMK executive director. In his words, along with replacement and increase of the converter capacity the coming modernization also provides for improving gas-cleaning tracts, boilers. "So, we will be simultaneously accomplishing ecological tasks as well", Nosov stresses.
Reconstruction works are underway at the enterprise’s blast-furnace production facilities that will allow to reduce the total number of furnaces with no decrease in production volumes. The reversal of coke-oven batteries, for one, will result in having only five of them in operation instead of six at present.
The ecological policy of NTMK pays special attention to the program of processing man-caused formations. Dumps of metals production waste in Nizhny Tagil were being formed for 50 years. They accumulated more than 50 million tons of slag and other iron-containing waste. In order to utilize this waste the specialized shop with the highest capacity in the Russian metallurgy was built there. Since the start of its operation the shop has already processed over 8 million tons of unutilized slag. This allowed to gradually restore the natural landscape in the city’s north-eastern part. Since 2002 volumes of utilizing slag accumulated in dumps have exceeded those of storing the incoming waste. The complete removal of dumps and land revegetation are expected to take between 15 and 20 years.
The Nizhny Tagil Iron & Steel Works has been placed first and awarded a gold medal at the international ecological exhibition that is annually held in the city of Ekaterinburg. The enterprise has been given these honors for processing man-caused formations and introducing advanced technologies.
Under the ecological policy of NTMK approved by its management company EvrazHolding reducing negative impact of the production process on the environment and the population of Nizhny Tagil is a top priority task. It is planned to audit NTMK in 2004 so as to confirm its compliance with the ISO-14001 standard of controlling the quality of protecting the environment.