According to Alexander Stepanov, technical director of Severstal, "financing in the first six months of 2002 was 70% of the overall investment into technical upgrading and modernization of environmental protection facilities, which was planned for 2002."
   The six most important investment projects, mentioned by Stepanov, are the construction of the utilization unit for used water and oil in the cold rolling shop, which cost 10 million rubles, allowing to minimize waste disposal into hips.
   To decrease impact onto environment and decrease waste discharge in the atmosphere boilers of the thermoelectric power station will begin using gaseous fuel made of coke and blast furnace gases. With that purpose, the primary furnace air heaters will be rebuilt at the blast furnace Severyanka - the largest at Severstal.
   Implementation of the program in the first six months of 2002 allowed to decrease discharges in the atmosphere by 0.2%, into open water reservoirs - by 13%, waste storage - by 18%.
   Along with constructing and rebuilding environmental protection facilities Severstal continues to pay attention to the problems of the buffer area. "This year Severstal will finish construction of a new house, which will locate residents of two 80 flat houses in the buffer area. Besides that, Lengipromez, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Science and Research Institute named after Syisin and the city of Cherepovets are implementing the project of defining the boundaries of the buffer area. For the first time in Russia the boundaries of the buffer area will be established based of the theory of evaluating population health risks. These jobs will be completed in September," said Alexander Stepanov.
   Severstal's yearly investment into rebuilding and modernizing of environmental protection facilities totals120 million rubles. The largest projects include gas purification system at the pig iron desulfurization unit, which is under construction, as well as slag removal and pig iron pouring in the converter shop of Severstal.