OREANDA-NEWS. May 31, 2010. Nevinnomyssky Azot OJSC, EuroChem’s facility in Nevinnomyssk, is setting up air quality monitoring stations, first in Nevinnomyssk, and then in the neighboring Kochubeyevo District. The company will acquire special container buildings and laboratory equipment at a total cost of 2.8 million rubles.

The stations will allow the company to comprehensively assess air quality and take appropriate measures to improve it.

Anatoly Baturin, the Stavropol Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, stressed that Nevinnomyssk is the first city in the territory where such stations will be set up. The ministry will perform similar work in other cities.

Gidromet (the Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring Agency) will send the air quality information obtained from the monitoring stations to city hall every day. The city, in turn, plans to display the information downtown and on its website.

The work of setting up the stations is being done in accordance with an agreement between the City of Nevinnomyssk, the territory’s Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment and Nevinnomyssky Azot. In July, the parties signed a declaration of intent on the implementation of air quality monitoring and pollution abatement measures in the city and Kochubeyevo District. “Environmental concerns are sometimes politicized here, resulting in all talk and no action, but in this matter we’re getting down to work. The practical participation of Nevinnomyssky Azot and EuroChem in the creation of the stations is a public-private partnership in which we are solving problems that affect everyone,” said Nevinnomyssk Mayor Konstantin Khramov.

Under the trilateral agreement, Nevinnomyssky Azot is financing the purchase and installation of three air quality monitoring stations.

The ministry, in consultation with Gidromet’s Stavropol office, is studying air pollution from industry and transport in the Nevinnomyssk and Kochubeyevo districts and deciding where to place the stations. The City of Nevinnomyssk provides security at the stations and takes responsibility for the utilities connections.