Kazakh environmental groups, such as Green Salvation and EcoMuseum, maintain that though the plan’s intention to clean up the river is laudable, it can actually cause more environmental damage. They argue that the excavation of the mercury saturated banks and riverbeds would actually cause the mercury to rise and mix with the relatively uncontaminated part of the water, worsening the quality of the water as a whole. Though the river remains dangerously polluted, trying to clean it will not achieve a better result.
Furthermore, the groups have raised a multitude of concerns about the lack of participation or consultation with the local population, negligent environmental evaluation, and disregard for alternatives to the planned project. Meetings never took place with villages that depend on the river for their water supply, and project expenditures were not transparent, leaving the public powerless to give their input. Other methods of cleaning up the river were not taken fully into account; they were simply deemed too expensive and dismissed with no substantive explanation.
The site assigned for the construction of the landfill, Temirtau, is already one of the most polluted cities in Kazakhstan. Plagued with many social and environmental problems from the Soviet era steel plants, locals are vehemently against the construction of this landfill for mercury deposits. These protests, however, have been unheeded.
Given the problems with the Nura River Cleanup Project, civil society groups in Kazakhstan urge the World Bank to reconsider this dangerous endeavor.