Initiative group against the construction of radioactive waste disposal sites (CDEP) under Ukhta created a group in a social network VKontakte to establish communication between activists. A little less than two thousand people joined it in two weeks. Here they exchange the latest information, publish documents, organize their actions. Administrator of the group, a specialist in industrial safety, labor and ecology Olga Saprykina told why the establishment of such a community was long-pending.
— Why has the idea to create such group started up?
— We were faced the fact that the information on this project in the city was lopsided, unclear, blurred. To learn the truth of the scale of construction, time limits, on competence of the building was impossible from it. The idea of creating a group used to be in the air, but there was no assistant specialist who could embody it. We are not old yet; I am retired, but can still professionally create and maintain a group Vkontakte. And when I found the assistant, the group appeared.
— What materials did you post there?
— There are documents, official responses from interested agencies, officials, and extracts from the project itself, environmental impact assessment, articles that have appeared in the press. But most of the articles are related to disposal facilities in other regions, which have long been faced this topic, organized their social movements. We also have videos, questionnaires, samples of letters that we ask to send to the power structures to define the position.
— An article appeared on the website of the Russian nuclear community, in which members of the initiative group were called radiophobs. You gave a link in the group. It is written in a caustic manner towards you. It states that you are afraid of the construction of waste disposal facilities. How did you feel about it?
— Personally I am okay with it. And we all reacted to it in the right way. Although we were expecting an attack from the information field, as it was in Sosnovy Bor of the Leningrad region. Environmentalists were even beaten there for the dissemination of the truthful information about such construction. Rosatom allocated 17 million rubles for the preparation of public hearings there and building-up of the population. Black PR staff got involved; a group that advocates CDEP was created opposed to a group that fights against it. There was a real war against environmentalists. Therefore, it is a very weak twingle in our direction.
— And yet. Is there any truth in that you were called radiophobs?
— No, there is no truth. Radiophobs are those who are afraid of radiation. The world's population can be called radiophobs. Today there is no evidence that the safety of such storages has been calculated for hundreds of years. All stores are made by different technologies. To bury radioactive waste in the swamps of Komi is a suicide. Not all the laws of this natural system are known to us. Absolutely isolated natural systems don’t exist. And if the contamination of water in the swamps starts, we'll get something unpredictable.
— What is the situation in the Shudayag village, where live most of the members of the initiative group?
— The atmosphere in the village is tense. To build CDEP, Rosatom will have to send tanks to Shudayag. People will simply go out to the streets if the construction begins. They will have to crush us to build the repositories.
— There was a quote from the report of the temporary acting head of Komi Vyacheslav Gaizer of his report on the results of work in 2013 posted in the group. He spoke about the public hearings on CDEP there. In the comments, a lot of people were skeptical about his words. Why?
— I think, because people believe actions, not words. It is necessary to suit the action to the word. General level of trust to authorities in the country is negligibly small. The real care of people is evident from the acts. If the building is stopped, and the land is returned to the forest fund, then it will be a particular act. But not everybody is sharply or negatively sensitized. Most people just took his words into consideration, but we will judge by results. A few steps in the right direction were made, it pleases. And still the conversation doesn’t drift to the final serious document, but we'll wait for it.
— What are the short-range plans of the initiative group?
— We continue the work — these are the collection of signatures and meetings with the authorities. We will stick data sheets around the city, distribute them in mailboxes. Now the competition for the logo of our movement is announced: over 12 logos are created. In our group, people are not angry, and we believe that everything can be solved peacefully.
Today, mayor of Ukhta Igor Mikhel posted on his page VKontakte an appeal of the temporary acting head of Komi Vyacheslav Gaizer to the head of Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko. The central questions of the initiative group were also included there.
Maxim Polyakov, «7x7»
Original: http://7x7-journal.ru/item/38276
