Ukrainian environmental legislation needs changes. This was stated by the MP from UKROP Iryna Konstankevych during a press briefing in the Verkhovna Rada on May 25. As an example of its inefficiency she cited the situation in Lutsk. During the last two months the city has been suffocating from a terrible stench. Local residents associate this offensive odor with wastes dumped on the filtration fields by the enterprise manufacturing bioethanol. Production is located on the territory of Gnidavsky sugar factory – too close to school, kindergarten and dwelling houses. The residents complain of respiratory distress, allergic and other reactions to intoxication by fumes coming from the plant. The number of visits to doctors in this regard has been recently increased by 1.5 times.
“I have prepared parliamentary inquiries and appeals to the environmental services that have to supervise and control the work of such enterprises. This problem has already moved beyond the city, and become a regional-wide, as it shows inadequacy of environmental legislation and the need for its revision,” said Iryna Konstankevych.
City authorities have already appealed to the district and regional administrations asking to intervene, but there was no proper response.
“We are also concerned about the inaction of environmental services that refuse to take up this issue. We want to know who gave permission for the construction and work of the plant of chemical industry, in fact, in a residential area, some 100 meters from school and hospital,” said the deputy of Lutsk City Council from UKROP Borys Smul during a press briefing.
He has also mentioned that Lutsk residents’ faith that the situation will be resolved by the state control services melts every hour, so protests of the city residents may become massive and uncontrollable, as it comes to people’s health and life. The deputy has expressed hope that after this press briefing environmental services will react to the problem, and the guilty will be punished.
