FILE – In this handout file photo dated Tuesday, June 2, 2020, provided by the Russian Marine Rescue Service, rescuers work to prevent the spread from an oil spill outside Norilsk, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday June 19, 2020, has ordered his government to fully repair environmental damage from a massive fuel leak in the Arctic. A power plant in the Siberian city of Norilsk leaked 20,000 tons of diesel fuel into the ecologically fragile region when a storage tank collapsed on May 29. (Russian Marine Rescue Service via AP, File)
MOSCOW — Russia’s main criminal investigation body has launched a probe after a report that a nickel-processing plant was pumping water contaminated with heavy metals into the Arctic tundra.
The reported pollution detailed Sunday by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper was in the same region where a massive spill of diesel fuel last month entered Lake Pyasino,, which feeds a branch of the Arctic Sea.
The newspaper released a video of what it said was water from a Norilsk Nickel enrichment plant gushing out of a pipe and into a river that also runs into the lake. The Investigative Committee branch for the region said it has sent investigators.
Norilsk Nickel, one of Russia’s biggest companies, also owns the power plant from which some 21,000 tons of diesel fuel leaked in May when a storage reservoir collapsed, possibly due to melting permafrost.
Both facilities are north of the Arctic Circle, 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) northeast of Moscow, the Russian capital.