Sverdlovsk Region Minister for Natural Resources Konstantin Kryuchkov chaired a meeting of the regional Environment and Nature Management Committee on March 12, 2009. The primary topic on the meeting’s agenda had to do with the local enterprises having to drop their emission rates down to the maximum permissible discharge limits this year. The regional government declared on March 18, 2005 that sixteen local companies based in environmentally challenged areas had to fit themselves into the limits by 2015.

So far, several enterprises have actually managed to reach these limits by January 1, 2009. These are, among others: Yekaterinburg-based Spetsstal, Kamensk Uralskiy-based Krasnogorskaya heating plant and Sinara Pipe Works, and Serov-based state district power plant and ferrous alloys works.