Court puts an end to dispute between environmentalists and businessmen over Odesa landfill

The Administrative Court of Cassation as part of the Supreme Court refused to open cassation proceedings against Clear City Limited Liability Company, finding that there were no legal grounds for reviewing the decisions of previous instances.

This was reported by the press service of the State Ecological Inspectorate of the Southwestern District.

In July 2020, the State Ecological Inspectorate in Odesa Oblast conducted an unscheduled inspection of Soyuz LLC, a company that disposes of household waste at the Dalnytsky Quarries landfill-1.

The inspection revealed numerous violations of environmental legislation in the areas of environmental impact assessment, waste management, and air protection. In particular, the inspectors claimed that Soyuz LLC failed to protect the land from pollution, namely: during a visual inspection of the landfill, they found leakage of leachate from the sedimentation pond onto the soil over an area of 630 square meters.

In order to determine the presence or absence of soil contamination, soil samples were taken at the site of leachate detection in the northwestern direction from the landfill, at a distance of 50 meters, in the Bilyayiv district, and it was found that the normalized values of the maximum permissible concentration of soil background were exceeded by the following indicators sulfates (1.68 times), hydrogen pH (1.015 times), nitrates (1.84 times), chlorides (1.51 times), phosphorus (1.8 times), and oil products (4.6 times).

Based on the results of the inspection, an act was drawn up and an order was issued to eliminate the identified violations. However, the company did not agree with the act and appealed to the Odesa District Administrative Court, which partially satisfied the claim, canceling only one clause of the order (regarding property rights to the land plot). At that time, the dispute was already with Clear City Limited Liability Company.

The Fifth Administrative Court of Appeal dismissed Clear City's appeal. So the company went to the Court of Cassation.

Кирило Бойко