CAMCA supporting environmental storytelling In Kazakh media

Hello everyone, and welcome to the channel “What Are You Breathing?”, which tells you how the environment affects you and your children — and what you can do about it. I’m journalist Alyona Pankova.

Today, I’ll tell and show you what’s really going on with the environment in Prishakhtinsk, Karaganda.

When residents complained to me about dirty air and smog in their neighborhood, I thought the problem was just a few coal storage sites the size of train cars and household stoves. But I couldn’t have imagined the horror I would witness when I arrived in the industrial sector.

Picture a wasteland the size of a small city — most of it either dug up or covered with coal, dirt, or sludge.

In the past year, the industrial area with massive sludge piles has tripled in size. The height is like a 10-story building. Not even birds fly there. We started writing to all authorities. They’ve begun expanding the piles in width now.

Only after seeing it with my own eyes did I understand why, in recent years, Karaganda has overtaken Temirtau as the city with the dirtiest air and black snow in Kazakhstan.

From the Environmental Bulletin of Kazakhstan:

“In the past five years, from 2020 to 2024, consistently high levels of air pollution have been observed in the cities of Astana, Almaty, and Karaganda.

The main pollutants in Karaganda are suspended particles (dust), PM2.5, PM10, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulfide.”

The problems for residents of Prishakhtinsk are not only caused by the Central Processing Plant and the old and new ash dumps.

There’s more than just the processing plant operating in that area. Four more enterprises are tied to this territory.

We found this coal mountain right at the entrance to Maikuduk.

All these coal piles are located along the most popular highway connecting Maikuduk with Prishakhtinsk.

They’re easy to spot from your car window — for example, when driving from the district administration to the Prishakhtinsk Community Center to meet with residents.

The management of this coal depot said during the summer that they had signed a contract with China and would install a dust-catching screen on the residential side.

As of today, we don’t see any such screen.

But no protective screen can save Karaganda’s residents from the most dangerous kind of pollution — fine particulate matter.

PM particles are tiny fragments of soil, soot, asphalt, tire rubber, heavy metal compounds, and more.

The most dangerous PMs are soot particles — coal absorbs toxic compounds well,

turning these into particles with harmful “filling.”

They enter the bloodstream and lungs, accumulate in the body, and lead to thrombosis, ischemic heart disease, heart attacks, and cancer.

After seeing the industrial zone, I realized that Karaganda’s ecology will never improve unless order is restored near Prishakhtinsk.

I believe it’s long past time for a plan to be developed to involve industrial companies in solving the city’s environmental issues.

The only company currently in contact with residents is Karaganda EnergoCenter LLP.

You see Shacman trucks and equipment — that’s the CHPP (combined heat and power plant). As community support, they’re planting a green belt, cleaning the irrigation ditch.

The general director regularly meets with residents of Prishakhtinsk:

“We’re finishing the pipelines, preparing the pump station, checking electrical components, and lighting.

As for the ash pond and the geomembrane, we’ve completed all work around the dam as planned and will continue as per the project.”

Let’s do it this way — we’ll create a working group with representatives from the local self-government (MSU),

and when you install the membrane, let a local resident take part.

In the next video, I’ll tell you what officials think about Prishakhtinsk’s environmental situation.

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