The ecological situation in Sochi is close to critical - this is the conclusion of the auditors of the Russian Federation's Audit Chamber, who have revised expenditures on ecological monitoring and nature protection, which had been allocated by the 2009 federal budget in the sum of 208.3 million roubles.

On September 3, the Collegium of the RF's AC, chaired by Sergey Stepashin, considered the outcomes of the check conducted jointly with the Control-Audit Chamber of the Krasnodar Territory.

In the course of the check the auditors have established that the procedure of compensatory actions of forest replanting offered by the "Rosprirodnadzor" (Russian Federal Agency for Nature Supervision) is ineffective, while the nature-protection legislation has failed until now to define the order of enforcing the appropriate control powers.

The statement placed in the official website of the RF's AC runs that the auditing and supervisory bodies had revealed a number of violations of the nature-protection legislation, which resulted in imposition of 227 fines to the total sum of 6 million roubles on managing subjects.

Auditors have established that the city of Sochi has no lawful dumps, the "Vedomosti" newspaper writes today, referring to available copy of presentation made by Mikhail Odintsov, an AC's auditor. According to his story, all the garbage is brought to the sump near Loo village, which was officially closed in 2006.

"In the peak of construction we'll have some 5 million tons of wastes, which is nowhere to dispose," Mr Odintsov wrote.

According to his version, waste-treatment plants could remedy the situation, but they will appear not earlier than 2013. One of them, together with a landfill for waste storage should be built by Oleg Deripaska's structures 3 km off Buu village, but, to save money, the construction site was brought closer to the village.

The situation in Sochi is complex also with the sewage system - wastewater is still drained into the Black Sea, without observing even minimal requirements of the legislation, which allow discharges at least 2 km away from the coastal line, auditors note. Drains are discharged at 200 m from the coast, sometimes, even at 50 m; the reason being the worn-out infrastructure: pipes have rusted through from sea water. "By 2012, they assume to build four purification facilities and two deep-water drains, but what to do before that - nobody knows," said Odintsov.

As reported by the representative of secretariat of Vice-Premier Dmitri Kozak, who is supervising the preparation for the Olympiad, any worrying signals in the sphere of ecology arriving from public organizations or authorities are analyzed; and orders are issued to executors prescribing to address the problems. However, he refused to discuss the conclusions of the Audit Chamber, the above newspaper notes.

The spokesman of the State Corporation "Olympstroy" refused from comments; the "Bazel" also could not comment the situation with construction of the landfill near Buu village.