“

Compress the gas! Over the last few years air pollution in Donetsk has deteriorated because of increasing motor transport. Pro- vincial traffic jams can easily com- pete with those in the capital. With the crisis the economic situation in Donetsk changed, but until then, the steel plants were very, very profit- able. And people related to this business (not ordinary workers of course) liked to spend their money on cool new cars.

The residents of Donetsk go to work by public transport. The underground is still just a plan (although a lot of money has been spent on its construc- tion, but somehow nobody knows what exactly it was spent on) and the trolleybuses cannot cover the terri- tory of the huge city. Donetsk is one of the biggest cities in Ukraine, stretch- ing 55 km from east to west and 28 km north to south. So the buses and minibuses snort around, adding to the emissions of the cars and lorries.

The level of pollution could have been reduced if transport had been converted to run on gas. And it does not matter much that Russian gas is getting more expensive. Donbass has got plenty of its own resources: I mean the coal mine methane that

is currently flared off. Zasyadko coal mine invested nearly 700 mil- lion Ukrainian hryvnas [US$100 to 150m] in a special scheme which has enabled it to implement a degasifi- cation programme and has provid- ed the mine with electricity as the methane is supplied to a small pow- er station. The mine generates so much electricity that there are plans to sell it, unfortunately delayed by a recent accident. The payback period of such a programme is only three years; but other mines are in no hur- ry to adopt this novelty. The mine owners are not ready to foot the bill, nor do they trust the government de- spite talk of a special law that would stimulate the use of mine methane. Obviously the whole business is so unprofitable for gas traders that for many decades we have continued to buy gas from Russia despite having huge deposits under our feet.

Talking about transport, the whole transport fleet of the Zasyadko mine is powered by condensed gas pro- duced at its own compressor facility. Positive improvements are there, but it is often too hard to see them.

I was very surprised that the cost of property in Donetsk is comparable with property in the capital. Strange

According to calculations the level of harmful emissions exceeds 1 kg per resident every day.”

as it may seem, factory chimneys – literally located in the city centre – have hardly any influence on prices.

Hardly anything is deducted from those super profits for environmen- tal protection. Donetskstal is prob- ably the only exception. According to reports, more than 100 million hryvnas [US$20 to 30m] have been invested there in environmental im- provements over the last four years. I do not know how much the owners of the plant cared about the health of Donetsk residents whilst doing that, but it helped them to obtain ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certifica- tion for environmental management. In turn that makes the plant’s out- put more competitive on the inter- national market.

There is also a plan to replace six open-hearth furnaces with electric ones. Open-hearth furnaces are not just environmentally damaging, their technology is completely outdated.

It is very difficult to breathe in the open-hearth furnace shop. No mat- ter how bright the head of environ- mental protection may sound when talking about ISO certificates, it does not make breathing any better or easier. And further contemplation

of the church, little zoo and pond with the swans does not change the situation either.

The worst thing is that nobody ex- cept Donetskstal plans to replace their open-hearth furnaces, such as those in Mariupol and other Ukrain- ian cities. Neither India, Russia nor China could afford such an energy- hungry production method.

And finally a few words about the water basin of Donetsk. The river Kalmius remains the only blue line on the map. Twenty or 30 years ago it was still possible to go swimming there. Now only a suicide could take such a risk, as the Kalmius carries the wastewater of the city including discharge from mines and chemi- cal enterprises. The wastewater has only undergone mechanical treat- ment, and the chemicals dissolved in the water remain. Some people joke that local investors are developing a project to use the Kalmius to trans- fer electricity. Well, why not? The concentrations of anions and cations which ensure high conductivity are much higher than maximum permis- sible concentrations.

The very MPCs by which the city lives, or dies...?

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