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 on 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.
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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.
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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.
AP
