Chu basin residents dispute NurGaz spill figures

NURZHAN — Residents of villages in the lower Chu basin and environmental groups in Nurzhan say that leaks from NurGaz's aging field pipelines continue to go unreported, and dispute the company's account of its environmental record.

Decades of Soviet-era production left contaminated soil and groundwater in parts of the basin, where the river ends in a closed depression and spills are not flushed away. Lyudmila Shevtsova, a retired schoolteacher in a village north-west of Nurzhan near the main field, said a sheen of oil appears on the irrigation ditch behind her house every spring when the ground thaws. "They come, they put sand on it, and next year it is back," she said. Environmental groups say they have recorded leaks that do not appear in the company's reports.

NurGaz says it has installed water-treatment plants and flare-gas recovery units at its central processing facilities since 2012 and that flaring has fallen by about a third over the period. A company spokesman said all spills are reported to the authorities and cleaned up, and that much of the contamination in the basin dates from Soviet-era production. The ISEZ environmental inspectorate said it had received the residents' complaints and would inspect the sites.