The State Environmental Inspectorate announced on Sept. 17 that Ukraine’s largest steel company, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, broke environmental regulations and caused $17 million worth of damage by illegally dumping waste material.
According to the inspectorate, the steel manufacturer was caught disposing of waste in a prohibited area during an unscheduled inspection in Kryvyi Rih, a city of 635,000 people located 350 kilometers southeast of Kyiv.
The company denied any wrongdoing, calling the accusations a move to put pressure on business.
Formerly known as Kryvorizhstal, it was renamed ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih in 2007 when taken over by Indian-owned Mittal Steel, which is now part of ArcelorMittal, the world’s second-largest steel producer and the biggest foreign investor in Ukraine.
The Kryvyi Rih plant has been accused of polluting the environment before. It has paid millions of dollars worth of fines in the past for breaking the environmental law.
This time, the state inspector said that the land plot where the company dumped waste was not equipped with a waste management system.
Whether the bottom of the dumping site was covered with a waterproof natural soil layer to prevent the waste from going deeper underground is currently unclear.
The excess materials produced during steel production contain harmful chemicals, such as iron oxide, that can cause groundwater pollution if they seep into the soil.
The ecological inspectorate is ready to take the dispute to court if the steel company refuses to pay the fine.
The head of the State Ecological Inspectorate, Andriy Malovany, warned that the agency will continue to hold unplanned inspections until ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih modernizes the facilities and no longer violates the environmental law.
The Ministry of Energy and Environmental Protection included the Kryvyi Rih company in the list of top 20 air-polluting companies in the country, Investory News reported in 2019.
Last year, the firm paid more than $412,000 (Hr 11 million) for releasing an excessive amount of pollutants into the atmosphere. In 2016, it paid a $2.7 million (Hr 72.7 million) fine for the same offense.
