(eca 131) Russian officials say orange snow poses no threat


dpa German Press Agency
Published: Friday February 2, 2007

Moscow (dpa) - Russian authorities said Friday that yellow and
orange snow that fell in a number of Siberian villages posed no
health hazards, though the cause was unclear, with officials blaming
mud from Kazakhstan and ecologists blaming fertilizer factories.
"According to preliminary results, no chemically dangerous, toxic
or radioactive substances have been found," Viktor Beltsov, a
spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry, told Interfax.

The snow fell January 31, and details of its appearance in three
West Siberian regions - the industrial Omsk, Tomsk and Tyumen regions
- were made public Friday after residents of the remote areas
contacted health officials.

No health problems had been reported by any of the roughly 30,000
residents of the 50 villages covered by the 100-kilometre long, 600-
metre wide belt of precipitate.

Beltsov said the discolouration was due to the presence of mud and
sand typical of the Kazakh steppe. The affected regions are located
just north of the Central Asian nation, and about 2,000 kilometres
south-east of Moscow.

Beltsov denied locals' reports that the snow was oil and had an
musty odor to it.

Lyudmila Voronina, director of the West Siberian Meteorology
Centre, said, however, that tests showed the snow carried nitric
elements that showed the snow was "of a natural character and even
has a characteristic unpleasant odour."

Voronina speculated the snow may have gotten its color from Aral
Sea mud.

Viktor Chipchai, a regional Emergency Situations Ministry
official, said the snow had tested positive for high concentrations
of metals, including iron. He asserted that the levels were not
harmful to humans.

Other area authorities with the emergency ministry and Russia's
Consumer Protection Agency also noted that while the level of certain
metals was four times higher than it should be, that did not pose a
threat to humans.

"The layer of polluted snow is only 1 millimetre and upon melting
in the spring the metal will go into the soil. Besides, iron is
harmless," Pyotr Uskov of the consumer agency said.

Mikhail Faleyev, director of the emergency ministry's early-
warning department, said the snow was similar to incidents in 2000
and 2002 when pollutants from a Kazakh metals plant had snowed down
on Russia.

However, Faleyev maintained that both then and now no toxic
materials were contained in the snow.

Independent ecologists, however, were less confident about the
snow's harmless nature.

"It's most likely pollution from oil refineries or fertilizer
plants," Alexei Yablokov, leader of Russia's Green Party and a member
of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said.

"The effects of these contaminants are long-term and could be seen
in a year or two - or even five," he added.

Tyumen region prosecutors, meanwhile, said they were following the
developments but did not see any reason to enter the investigation.

"There aren't any companies in the Tyumen region that could be
guilty for this precipitate," Viktor Russkikh, the Tyumen prosecutor
general, told Interfax.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency