Discharge from waste reservoir colors rivers red in Norilsk

River Daldykan to the West of Norilsk, a mining town in the northern part of Siberia in Russia, turned attention after photographs of its ruby colored waters appeared on the web on September 5, 2016.

#Norilsk, northern #Russia: the site of copper & nickel #mining & #environment|al degradation pic.twitter.com/2s6kRXPsql

— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) September 7, 2016

Looking at Landsat images of the area it turns out that the river keeps its color for several years already. The red colored waters flow from a waste reservoir connected by a pipeline to Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant towards the lake Pyasino down the rivers Daldykan and Ambarnaya.

Landsat 8 image shows the waste reservoir colored red (bottom centre), the river Daldykan (flows bottom to top in the middle of the image), the point where the river Daldykan merges into river Ambarnaya. The characteristic red color of the water is visible already. Image taken on August 10, 2016 (Scene ID: LC81530112016223LGN00), processed with GRASS GIS.